ML23269A037

FOIA-2023-000018 - Resp 1 - Final, Agency Records Subject to the Request Are Enclosed

ML23269A037
Person / Time
Issue date:	09/18/2023
From:	NRC/OCIO
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FOIA-2023-000018
Download: ML23269A037 (74)

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Subject:

Location:

Quarterly Assessment Meeting: Pilgrim/TM I/Indian Point R1_3094A_VAFO-50p Resource; R1_3094B_VAFO-22p Resource Start:

End:

Recurrence:

Meeting Status:

Tue 4/30/2019 9:30 AM Tue 4/30/2019 11 :00 AM (none)

Accepted Organizer:

R1 DRPCAL RESOURCE Required AttendeesR1 DRPCAL RESOURCE; Sheehan, Neil; Screnci, Diane; Tifft, Doug; DeBoer, Briana; Yerokun, Jimi; Collins, Daniel; Shams, Mohamed; Paul Krohn (Paul.Krohn@nrc.gov); Lorson, Raymond; Lew, David; R1 DRSCAL RESOURCE; R1 ORACAL RESOURCE; Wall, Scott; Orenak, Michael; Burket, Elise; Pinson, Brandon; Cline, Leonard; Anthony.Dimitriadis@nrc.gov; Hollcraft, Zachary; Danna, James; Poole, Justin; Parker, Carleen; Young, Matt; Shaffer, Steve (Steve.Shaffer@nrc.gov); Krafty, James; Horvitz, Stacey; Vadella, Robert; Guzman, Richard; Schroeder, Daniel (Daniel.Schroeder@nrc.gov);

brian.haagensen@nrc.gov; Vazquez, Justin; Siwy, Andrew; Lin, Brian; 'Mark Draxton'; Hammann, Stephen; Powell, Raymond (Raymond.Powell@nrc.gov)

Optional Attendees:Klukan, Brett; McLaughlin, Marjorie; Anagnostopoulos, Harold; R1 DRPBRSCAL RESOURCE Join Skype Meeting Trouble Joining? Try Skype Web App Bridgeline:l(b)(B)

Passcode: '-------------'

Agenda:

Pilgrim TMI IP Below is supporting documentation.

Agenda:

Pilgrim TMI IP Below is supporting documentation.

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Offieial Use OAly SeAsitive IAternal am:! SeeuFity Related IAforrnatioA Pre DeeisioAal Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station ROP-20 Quarterly Assessment Plant Performance Summary April 1, 2018 - March 31, 2019 Licensee performance is in the Licensee Response Column due to all Green findings and performance indicators.

There are no cross-cutting themes or issues.

Power History:

On January 3, 2019, the station reduced power to 25 percent to troubleshoot 01/03/2019 and repairfeedwater regulating valve 'A ' On January 6, 2019, operations personnel returned the unit to rated thermal power. (Planned)

On January 16, 2019, the station reduced power to 25 percent to repair a 01/16/2019 leaking primary containment isolation system valve. On January 17, 2019, operations personnel returned the unit to rated thermal power. (Planned)

On March 20, 2019, the station reduced power to 35 percent to repair a leaking 03/20/2019 feedwater heater valve in the condenser bay. On March 21, 2019, operations personnel returned the unit to rated thermal power. (Planned)

Potential Safety-Significant Inspection Findings: None.

Plant Shutdown: Defueling outage is scheduled for May 31, 2019 Planning for Decommissioning (in accordance with IMC 2515 Appendix G):

Remaining Inspections (beyond resident)

IP 71130, Access Control, Security Equipment, Security Training IP 71111.17T, Evaluations of Changes, Tests, and Experiments IP 60855.1, Operation of an ISFSI at Operating Plant 04/08/2019-04/12/2019*

04/15/2019-04/19/2019*

9/23/19 - 9/27/19

(* outside the quarterly period)

Staffing Levels and Attrition Rates Staffing at Pilgrim reduced from 582 employees on October 1, 2018 to 574 on April 1, 2019. There are 24 senior reactor operators (SRO) and 21 reactor operators with active licenses on staff at Pilgrim, maintaining a five shift rotation. Current non-licensed operator staffing is 37. In September, the station released its staffing organizational chart for decommissioning, it included 303 positions, 258 of which had been filled. On March 4, 2019, 25 personnel who originally accepted positions in the Phase 1 organization, opted out. This included the decommissioning manager and all of the emergency directors in the ERO. The Phase 1 organization has been re-evaluated and reduced to - 275 personnel based on planned decommissioning activities and staffing numbers at Vermont Yankee and Fitzpatrick.

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Official Use 011ly Sensitive Iii le, 11al a11d Seem ity-Related l11fo, 11,atio11 P, e Decisio11al Maintenance Backlogs There was a decrease in the maintenance backlogs over the assessment period. The current backlog numbers are: 0 corrective critical (CC), 3 corrective non-critical (CN), 1 deficient critical (DC), and 37 deficient non-critical (DN). The backlog at the end of 2018 was 0 CC, 5 CN, 3 DC, and 48 DN. The backlog at the end of 2017 was 5 CC, 9 CN, 12 DC, and 69 DN. An additional staff member was added to the emergent maintenance response group (FIN) in 2017, and this has helped the station to better respond to emergent repair items. DRP and DRS staff analyzed the maintenance backlogs and found that, though the licensee was extending the frequencies between PMs, they still meet or exceed industry standards for the frequency of PMs. The NRC staff does not have any concerns with Pilgrims' handling of maintenance deferrals.

Equipment Reliability Entergy continues to have a focus on fixing the plant. As evident in the previous section, maintenance backlog reduction has been a focus at the station. The station continues to utilize the Top Ten Equipment Reliability program to correct system deficiencies. Specifically, the Top Ten Equipment Reliability list has dropped from six items to three items during the assessment period. The program has been used to focus resources on the following systems, resulting in their removal from the list: radwaste system enhancements, refuel bridge improvements, and reactor building ventilation system improvements.

Maintenance and Testing The residents have not identified action by the licensee to defer required preventative maintenance or surveillances.

Operator Workarounds and Main Control Room Deficiencies Entergy is maintaining a focus on timely correction of OWAs and control room deficiencies.

The site has 1 control room deficiency that requires a forced outage to correct. There are currently no operator workarounds or burdens, and this has been the case for the past year.

Condition Report Generation There has been a 14% decrease in condition report generation as compared to the previous assessment period. The inspectors have been monitoring this declining trend but have not identified any instances where issues associated with risk-significant or safety-related equipment have not been addressed in the CAP. Additionally, the station has been trending condition report generation by functional area on a biweekly basis, and when the CR generation rate reaches a trigger point, an assessment is initiated to determine the cause.

Radiation Protection No significant issues were identified during the most recent radiation protection inspections for exposure control and dose assessment.

Availability of emergency facilities and operability of emergency sirens No concerns.

Other:

Spent Fuel Pool Racks On September 26, 2018, the NRC issued a letter to Entergy regarding the Closeout of Generic Letter 2016-01, "Monitoring of Neutron-Absorbing Materials in Spent Fuel Pools." The letter states that the NRC staff found interim corrective actions taken to be adequate, and that the licensee identified a non-conservative technical specification (TS) that will be resolved per Administrative Letter (AL) 98-10. Specifically, because of the degraded neutron absorption 2 of 6

fficial Use Q,,fy Se11sitive li1te111al a11d Secu1it9-Related li,formation Pre Oeeisional capability (boraflex) of the spent fuel pool racks, the TS maximum allowable infinite lattice multiplication factor (k-inf) of 1.32 will no longer bound the effective multiplication factor (k-eff) of 0.95, to ensure spent fuel pool conditions remain sufficiently sub-critical. Region 1 has completed several inspections related to this issue and currently has no operability concerns.

The last annual Pl&R sample performed was completed in the first quarter of 2019. That sample reviewed Entergy's most recent criticality analysis for the pool, the current spent fuel pool configuration and operability determination, and Entergy's plans to address the non-conservative TS (non-conservative k-infinity limit) that was reported via LER. Based on the results of this inspection, the inspectors (in consultation with NRR) concluded that the methods Entergy has in place to control the reactivity in the pool and the timeline for removing all fuel from the pool per the decommissioning plan, are effective to maintain the pool in a safe configuration (with k-eff below 0.95) despite the boraflex degradation. Unless new fuel is purchased and stored in the pool, the new bounding limits on k-infinity values will not be exceeded, as long as Entergy adheres to the administrative controls that have been established.

Because there are currently no plans to purchase additional fuel, and because the established administrative controls have been deemed sufficient to maintain k-eff in the pool below regulatory limits, Entergy does not plan to submit an amendment request to address the non-conservative value fork-infinity currently listed in the TS. To ensure the pool remains in a safe configuration and that spent fuel pool reactivity is adequately controlled following permanent shutdown, DNMS will continue to monitor Entergy's adherence to the established controls on fuel storage/location, using the decommissioning inspection program procedures. DNMS will also monitor Entergy's adherence to its established decommissioning timeline. DNMS can close the three open LER revisions once all fuel is removed from the spent fuel pool and the license for storage of fuel in the pool has been suspended/terminated. At that point, the TS limits on pool conditions, including k-infinity, will no longer apply.

Grand Gulf Confirmatory Order (Ml 18072A 191)

The NRG issued a Confirmatory Order to the Entergy fleet on March 12, 2018, which confirmed commitments between Entergy and the NRC's Region IV Office, as a result of an alternate dispute resolution (ADR) settlement agreement on February 6, 2018, concerning three apparent violations that were considered for escalated enforcement in an NRG letter dated November 20, 2017 (Grand Gulf IR 05000416/2017014; ML17325A002). The actions required by the NRG Confirmatory Order issued to Entergy on March 12, 2018, include:

o providing a communication to workers at each site about the Order and the violations (completed); and o

performing a causal evaluation informed by individual site evaluations (complete); and o

conducting an organizational health survey to identify safety culture concerns (March 2019 and Sept 2020); and o

conduct semi-annual training, through 2019, to all fleet workers about how willfulness will not be tolerated, followed by annual training in 2020; and o

conducting annual effectiveness reviews for three years to evaluate the results of the corrective actions.

Based on previous history with Entergy's responses to Confirmatory Orders, RIV plans to conduct interim inspections of Entergy's response to this order. The first of these inspections was completed in January 2019 and the report was issued on April 4. The RIV inspection reviewed Entergy actions completed to date for all affected plants, but the report documentation only addressed RIV docket numbers.

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Offieial Use Only Sensitive Internal anEI Security-g@lat@ci lnrorm;itiGn Pre-Deci5ional Region IV identified concerns with the implementation of the sitewide communications directed by the Order during this first inspection. Specifically, the concerns included the means used to track the completion and effectiveness of the communication methods that were used. Region IV did not disposition the concerns as violations of the order, but Entergy committed to address them during future communications.

According to IP 92702:

Confirmatory Orders issued as a result of the ADR process require follow-up to ensure required actions are completed.

Therefore, inspection of the completed actions for this order, as they apply to Region I plants, must be reviewed and documented to close the Order for Region I plants. This can be completed in one or multiple inspections, and should consider the insights from Region IV interim inspections that could be applied to actions completed for applicable Region I plants.

Recent discussions with the Regulatory Assurance department at Pilgrim suggests that Entergy plans to request to rescind this order as it applies to Pilgrim when the plant shuts down.

Discussions with Pilgrim Regulatory Assurance indicated that this request is currently in routing and is expected to be issued in early May. The letter that includes the request is addressed to the Regional Administrator Region IV.

PB5 will continue to update the Region on the status of this potential action and to coordinate with Region IV regarding the results of, and plans for future Confirmatory Order follow-up inspections.

Pilgrim License Actions - Decommissioning Entergy has eleven decommissioning related licensing actions that are under review: (1) license amendment request (LAR) to revise the emergency plan (EP) and emergency action level to address the permanently defueled condition, (2) request for EP exemptions from portions of 10 CFR 50.47 and 10 CFR Part 50, Appendix E, (3) LAR for permanently defueled technical specifications, (4) rescission of security orders EA-02-026 and EA-06-137, (5) spent fuel management plan, (6) exemption request to use decommissioning trust fund money for spent fuel management and site restoration, (7) PSDAR, (8) license transfer application, (9) request for partial exemption from record retention requirements, (10) request for exemptions from portions of 10 CFR 50.47 and 10 CFR Part 50, Appendix E, and (11) request for exemption From 10 CFR 140.11(a)(4).

Pilgrim Current License Transfer Application By letter dated November 16, 2018, Entergy and Holtec submitted a license transfer application

{L TA) for Pilgrim. Upon closing of the proposed transaction, Holtec will own Pilgrim as well as its associated assets and real estate, including its nuclear decommissioning trust fund (DTF),

and title to spent nuclear fuel. The Pilgrim L TA included a request for exemption from Holtec to use DTF money for spent fuel management and site restoration. By letter dated November 16, 2018, Holtec submitted a revised Pilgrim PSDAR. By letter dated December 17, 2018, the NRC staff informed Entergy that the NRC staff is treating the Holtec PSDAR as a supplement to the Pilgrim LTA.

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Offieial Use 01'11 v* Srnsiti ve lfiternal afid SeeUFit9-Related II,fo11 11atio11 P1 e Oecisio11al The NRC held a public meeting on January 15, 2019, in Plymouth, Massachusetts and received comments from the public regarding the Pilgrim L TA. The Federal Register notice was published on January 31, 2019 (84 FR 816), for a 20-day hearing period and a 30-day comment period, which ended on February 20, 2019 and March 4, 2019, respectively. The NRC received 2 hearing requests from: (1) the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Attorney General Office, and (2) Pilgrim Watch. The NRC received 38 comments from 34 individuals on the Pilgrim LTA.

Entergy and Holtec requested that the NRC staff complete its Pilgrim L TA review by May 31, 2019. NRC staff are currently reviewing the technical and financial qualifications of Holtec. The staff plans to complete its review by July 31, 2019, if all RAls are resolved in an appropriate timeframe and no environmental contentions are admitted.

Key Messages

1. Leadership, management and staff remain focused on sustaining the performance improvements achieved with the recovery plan. For example:

Conservative Decision Making The inspectors noted that Entergy continued to make conservative decisions during the assessment period and promote a positive nuclear safety culture.

o In January, the licensee made an 8-hour notification in accordance with 50.72 associated with a failed limit switch on an MSIV that provides input to RPS. The potential loss of safety function was raised by the shift manager upon discovery of the failed limit switch, since a previous limit switch had failed in November. The station and Entergy corporate were unsure if a loss of safety function had occurred.

After engagement with GE and the BWROG, Entergy corporate and Pilgrim staff came to the conclusion that a loss of safety function did not occur and submitted a retraction. The inspectors also noted that this was an example of a positive safety culture in that the questioning attitude of the shift manager was supported by senior management.

o On at least two occasions in February 2019, work was delayed due to impending severe weather.

o In January, the station reduced power to 25% to repair a leaking primary containment isolation valve in the steam tunnel. This resulted in eliminating a compensatory measure where operators were quantifying the leak rate at least shiftly. Thus, reducing the burden on operators and reducing dose received.

o In March, during a deep down power for a rod pattern adjustment, the station entered the condenser bay to back seat a leaking 1st point heater drain block valve to reduce the potential for issues with feedwater level following a scram.

Independent Assessments Despite the pending shutdown, the inspectors noted that Entergy continues to seek feedback and input from third party assessors. In March, the station had an assessment from a new team of safety review committee members. Additionally, during this assessment period, although a full lNPO evaluation will not be performed, Pilgrim has had several evaluators from INPO reviewing various functional areas.

Work Management This was an area added during the previous assessment period and discussed at the end of cycle meeting. Specifically, the inspectors noted several examples where poor work planning and preparation had resulted in instances where work was delayed 5 of 6

Official Use 01119 Se11sitive l11ter11al a19el Seeurity Related l19formatio19 Pre Oeeisio19al because it could not be performed as the package was written. The inspectors have noted an improvement in work management during this assessment period. The station implemented a more detailed T-5 work week walk down of the job site and work package to identify any potential issues with completing the work. The station also reviews schedule adherence at daily plant meetings. The inspectors have not noticed any significant work delays that during the assessment period that impacted the reliability of safety-related or risk significant equipment.

2. Leadership and management focus on recovery and improved performance in order to transition to Column 1 has delayed planning for decommissioning activities.

Although the inspectors have not identified any issues with safely operating the plant or performing shut down or decommissioning activities, they have noticed shortfalls in decommissioning planning. These shortfalls bring into question the station's preparedness for having sufficient resources and controls in place to safely perform defueling and decommissioning activities. For example:

ERO Staffing and Training o

The March 4th opt out period resulted in no ERO teams fully staffed for Phase 1.

The licensee accelerated training for newly identified ERO members and had their first drill on April 3rd, with three more scheduled for April 24th, May 1st, and May 9th. The latter will be observed by an emergency preparedness specialist from NSIR. The station intends to fully staff four ERO teams. As of April 3, two teams are staffed, and the other two teams have 2-3 vacancies.

o The station has also identified unanticipated gaps in the fire brigade manning.

While operating, the fire brigade is manned by non-licensed operators. The station is identifying other individuals who will be part of the Phase 1 organization and training them for the fire brigade.

Phase 1 Procedures o

The station has identified 213 procedures that need to be revised for Phase 1.

The procedures fall into three categories:

Implement the post-shutdown emergency plan Potentially detrimental to expected plant conditions if executed as written Contain instructions that are not applicable in expected plant conditions, such that they may be an impediment to successful implementation by the trained performer.

o The station goal is to have all required procedures revised by May 31, 2019. As of April 19, 2019, only 35 of the 213 have been revised. Although this work is behind, as a result of resident discussions with management, the site is now devoting appropriate resources to this task and the project is getting appropriate management attention. The residents believe this should ensure that the May 31 date is achievable.

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U.S.NRC Unir~d Sra1cs Nudur Rcgul:uory Commlulon Proruting Ptopl~ and the Enviro,,mmr NRC News November 7, 2019 Daily News Brief

1. Midland Reporter-Telegram (TX): Conaway discusses impeachment inquiry at town hall 6 Nov 2019, Caitlin Randle Congressman Mike Conaway hosted an at-times heated town hall Wednesday evening to address a range of topics, including the ongoing House impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump.

2. Engineering News-Record: Decommissioning Ahead for San Onofre Nuclear Plant 6 Nov 2019, Mary B. Powers Southern California Edison will begin the $4.4-billion decommissioning of San Onofre nuclear generating station next year after receiving unanimous approval in mid-October from the California Coastal Commission, the final permit needed for work to begin.

3. Cape Cod Today (MA): Pilgrim Nuke Alarm Sirens to be Tested for Final Time 6 Nov 2019 Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station today announced there will be a TEST of the Prompt Alert Notification System (a system of sirens) in the 10-mile area around the station on Thursday, November 14, 2019 beginning at 3:45 p.m.

4. Energy News Network: Illinois lobbying scandal rattles alliance backing state clean energy legislation 6 Nov 2019, Kari Lydersen A lobbying scandal involving Illinois' largest power companies threatens to unravel an already tenuous coalition supporting a new round of ambitious clean energy legislation in the state.

5. ExchangeMonitor: CH2M Entering Home Stretch of Plutonium Finishing Plant Demolition 6 Nov 2019 A Jacobs subsidiary this week is commencing the final phase of tearing down the Plutonium Finishing Plant at the Energy Department's Hanford Site in Washington state. "I am proud to report that our team has safely completed lower-risk demolition of the Plutonium...

6. The News Courier (AL): NUKE PLANT: Uprate project nominated for award 7 Nov 2019 Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant has been selected by S&P Global Platts as a finalist for the Global Energy Award -

Construction Project of the Year -

for the successful completion this year of the Extended Power Uprate (EPU) project, according to a press release from the Tennessee Valley Authority.

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7. KOIN (OR): Uncovering Oregon's Treasures at the Oregon Historical Society's vault 6 Nov 2019, Jeff Gianola A secret warehouse filled with treasures from Oregon's past sounds like something from an Indiana Jones movie -

but it's a real vault of artifacts from the Oregon Historical Society.

Related News

8. Aiken Standard (SC): Extra furnace bolsters weapons-related mission at Savannah River Site 6 Nov 2019, Colin Demarest A previously unused industrial furnace at the Savannah River Site has been fired up, buttressing tritium operations there at a time when the related defense mission is expected to significantly expand.

9. ExchangeMonitor: Savannah River Hit Tritium Extraction Goals in 2019, With Twin Furnaces Fired Up 6 Nov 2019 Savannah River Nuclear Solutions said Tuesday it has commissioned a second furnace to prepare for four planned tritium extractions next year at the Department of Energy's Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C.

10. Carlsbad Current Argus (CA): How WIPP works: Waste Isolation Pilot Plant workers get to bring their family to the site 6 Nov 2019, Adrian Hedden Anthony Alonzo and his wife Elba journeyed 2,000 feet underground so she could see what he does for a living.

11. PR Newswire: Global Nuclear Fuel and X-energy Announce TRISO Fuel Collaboration 6 Nov 2019 Global Nuclear Fuel (GNF) and X-energy today announced a collaboration to produce low-cost, high-quality TRi-structural ISOtropic (TRISO) particle nuclear fuel.

12. Nuclear Energy Institute: Vox's David Roberts Speaks His Mind on Climate, Nuclear Energy 6 Nov 2019, Robbie Hayunga David Roberts, writer for Vox and Twitter influencer, joins Monica Trauzzi at Lupo Verde Osteria in D.C.'s Palisades neighborhood in this episode of"Offthe Menu." Dave and Monica discuss the scale of action needed to protect the climate and how to get the right groups talking to each other.

13. Thomas Insights: Happy Birthday Marie Curie!

7 Nov 2019, Courtney Hoff Maria Sklodowska - better known as Marie Curie - was born in Warsaw on November 7, 1867. The youngest of five children, she was the daughter of teachers and went on to take an interest in science like her father.

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International Nuclear News

14. Reuters: Iran fuels centrifuges, resumes uranium enrichment at Fordow 6 Nov 2019, Parisa Hafezi Iran resumed uranium enrichment at its underground Ford ow nuclear facility, the country's Atomic Energy Organisation (AEOI) said on Thursday, further stepping away from its 2015 nuclear deal with major world powers.

15. The Wall Street Journal: As Iran Expands Uranium Enrichment Activity, Risks to Nuclear Deal Rise 6 Nov 2019, Laurence Norman and Sune Engel Rasmussen Mr. Macron has led European efforts to salvage the deal after the U.S. pulled out of it last year and imposed harsh sanctions on Iran. The French leader has argued the agreement safeguards Europe's security interests and ensures Iran won't obtain a nuclear weapon in coming years.

16. The Washington Times: 'Urgency to act': Former top U.S. officials warn of Iranian nuclear moves 6 Nov 2019, Lauren Meier Former State Department officials are warning of rising risks attached to Iran's announcement that it will begin injecting uranium gas into over 1,000 centrifuges at one of its main underground facilities beginning at Thursday at midnight.

17. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: Members of US Congress refuse to benefit from the Iran nuclear deal 6 Nov 2019, John Krzyzaniak Bucking a trend in its maximum pressure campaign, last week the Trump administration decided that it would renew sanctions waivers for Iran's civil nuclear program. One of those waivers has allowed British and Chinese scientists to help Iran redesign the heavy water reactor at Arak to be used for peaceful purposes. Now, members of US Congress, including Senators Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham as well as Representative Liz Cheney, want to bar the administration from renewing waivers for Arak in the future, which would effectively prevent the United States from reaping a key benefit from the nuclear deal. Apparently, those legislators don't like having their cake and eating it too.

18. Reuters: Exclusive: Iran briefly held IAEA inspector, seized travel documents -

diplomats 6 Nov 2019, Francois Murphy and John Irish Iran briefly held an inspector working for the U.N. nuclear watchdog in the Islamic Republic and seized her travel documents, diplomats familiar with the agency's work said on Wednesday, with some describing it as harassment.

19. Financial Times: Suspected North Korea hackers targeted Indian space agency 7 Nov 2019, Stephanie Findlay, Edward White and Song Jung-a India's space research agency was warned of a cyber attack in the middle of a landmark moon mission as part of a broader assault by suspected North Korean hackers, cyber security consultants with data on the incidents said.

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20. The Quint: Exclusive: N Korea Stole Data From Kudankulam Attack. Says Expert 6 Nov 2019, Sushovan Sircar The cyber attack by suspected North Korea-based hackers on the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant in September was intended specifically for information theft and The Quint has now been told that the actors were able to steal technology-related data from the plant's IT systems.

21. Power Engineering International: Russia and Rwanda to build Centre for Nuclear Science and Technology 6 Nov 2019 Russia and Rwanda have signed an agreement to construct the first Centre of Nuclear Science and Technologies in Rwanda with the participation of ROSA TOM. The signing ceremony took part at the Russia-Africa Economic Forum in October in Sochi.

22. Taipei Times: Japan accused of trying to iustify nuclear dump 6 Nov 2019, Lin Chia-nan The Japanese government's claim that it will run out of room to store radiation-contaminated water at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in two years is not true, and is simply an attempt to justify discharging polluted water into the Pacific Ocean, a Greenpeace International member said yesterday.

23. The Associated Press: CERN appoints Gianotti, first female chief, to second term 6 Nov 2019 The European research center that runs the world's largest atom smasher says it has reappointed Italian physicist Fabiola Gianotti, its first female director, for a second five-year term.

Editorials

24. The Wall Street Journal: Iran's Nuclear Escalation: Time for Europe to join the U.S. maximum-pressure campaign 6 Nov 2019 President Hassan Rouhani has announced that Iran will violate restrictions on the Fordow underground nuclear facility starting Wednesday. President Trump's detractors will say this proves that leaving the 2015 nuclear deal was a mistake, but this is one more sign of the defects in the deal that Europe should be helping the U.S. to address.

Opinions

25. Arizona Daily Sun: Protecting the Grand Canyon area from uranium mining 6 Nov 2019, Rep. Tom O'Halleran I am proud to represent Arizona's First Congressional District, which is home to the Grand Canyon.

26. The Wahkiakum County Eagle (WA): Often repeating a lie doesn't make it true 6 Nov 2019, JB Bouchard Let's straighten out one twisted fact mentioned in an opinion piece last week. l refer to the repeated lie that "Hillary Clinton sold 20 percent of our uranium to Russia."

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27. OilPrice.com: Nuclear Ener~ Is Not The Enemy 6 Nov 2019, Haley Zaremba 11,000 scientists have declared a climate emergency and warned of "catastrophic threat" to humanity and "untold suffering" in a paper published this week in Oxford University Press' peer-reviewed BioScience journal. The paper, titled "World Scientists' Warning of a Climate Emergency" begins: "Scientists have a moral obligation to clearly warn humanity of any catastrophic threat and to 'tell it like it is.' On the basis of this obligation and the graphical indicators presented below, we declare, with more than 11,000 scientist signatories from around the world, clearly and unequivocally that planet Earth is facing a climate emergency."

28. Arizona Republic: Nuclear power isn't perfect. But since when did it become the boogeyman?

6 Nov 2019, Robert Robb U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva wrote a curious column about his bill to permanently ban uranium mining near the Grand Canyon. The bill passed the House last week.

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NRCNews

1. Midland Reporter-Telegram (TX): Conaway discusses impeachment inquiry at town hall 6 Nov 2019, Caitlin Randle Congressman Mike Conaway hosted an at-times heated town hall Wednesday evening to address a range of topics, including the ongoing House impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump.

Conaway announced in July he would not be seeking re-election to the U.S. House of Representatives and would be retiring from political life. He began the town hall by reiterating his reason for retiring, which he said was that he could no longer serve in a leadership role on the House Agriculture Committee.

"I love this job; that's not the issue," he told those gathered at Midland County Public Library Centennial branch. "Our health is good, Suzanne's [his wife] health is good. It's as simple as I'm not going to be up there if I'm not in leadership."

He said voting for his replacement would be an extremely important decision and he expected the election to go to a run-off because of the number of candidates who have entered the race. There currently are 13 candidates who have filed with the Federal Elections Commission.

Conaway said he would not be endorsing a candidate because he didn't think it would be appropriate to use his influence to sway voters.

The discussion then turned to the House impeachment inquiry. Conaway said talks about the inquiry had become "nauseating."

He said he doesn't believe Trump has done anything to warrant impeachment. Conaway said the possibility of impeachment is a serious matter some people have become desensitized to.

"Republicans began to desensitize the issue when, from time to time, we had Republicans during the Obama era saying they wanted to impeach Obama because they didn't like him," Conaway said.

He added that Obama hadn't done anything to warrant an impeachment inquiry.

Conaway also discussed the possibility of a government shutdown if Congress is unable to pass a budget by Nov. 21. Additionally, he spoke about the United States-Mexico-Canada agreement, which he said was "a trade deal that absolutely has to get done now."

He said there might be difficulties with passing the deal because Democrats will see it as benefiting Trump's re-election.

Conaway then opened the floor for questions. Residents asked him several legislative and policy questions.

One woman in the audience asked him about his support of the proposed temporary nuclear waste storage facility in Andrews and the discussion quickly became heated.

"I want to know, because I feel very powerless in this situation... this makes me feel personally in danger, I want to know what you stand to gain in bringing this forward," she said.

Conaway is not involved in the site's approval - the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will decide if the facility meets NRC safety standards.

However, Conaway said he believes from a public policy standpoint that moving the waste to a temporary location until a permanent location is available makes sense. There is currently no storage site for used nuclear fuel; nuclear waste is left in storage at nuclear power plants.

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Conaway became visibly irate as the woman continued to question his support of the site and ask if he was going to gain financially from it, which he said questioned his "integrity."

"It's better public policy in my view -- you get your view, your view's as good as mine, but I get a view as well -- and my view is unrelated to financial issues," he said.

He told her they'd have to respectfully disagree, and she could discuss it with his successor.

Other residents brought up legislative items they'd like to see Conaway support, including struggles with Medicaid.

A woman said her young daughter has three rare genetic mutations that only doctors familiar with those mutations are able to treat. She said she would have to go to other states to get treatment for her daughter, but Medicaid doesn't allow that.

"We have to resort to Go Fund Me. We have to resort to not seeing doctors," she said. "We have doctors who are interested in seeing her, but we can't get there with what we have."

Conaway said there wasn't a possibility of changing the legislation anytime soon, but he would try to help her get a waiver to the policy.

2. Engineering News-Record: Decommissioning Ahead for San Onofre Nuclear Plant 6 Nov 2019, Mary B. Powers Southern California Edison will begin the $4.4-billion decommissioning of San Onofre nuclear generating station next year after receiving unanimous approval in mid-October from the California Coastal Commission, the final permit needed for work to begin.

A joint venture of AECOM and EnergySolutions has the contract to take down the 2,200-MW, two-unit plant. Decommissioning will take close to a decade, and possibly longer depending on legal challenges, the power supply company said in a quarterly filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The firm also confirmed the 2020 start date in the filing. Public Watchdogs, a San Diego advocacy group, sued the plant's owners, asking the court to stop the decommissioning and the transfer of spent nuclear fuel from cooling ponds to dry storage out of fear it is not being done safely.

The transfer of fuel was suspended in August 2018 when a fuel canister was not loaded into a cavity enclosure container properly. The court refused to stop the work.

The coastal commission added a special condition to the permit, requiring the utility to fund an independent third-party review of an inspection and maintenance plan for the condition of the canisters in dry storage.

Southern California Edison owns 78.2% of the plant, San Diego Gas & Electric owns 20% and the city of Riverside, Calif., owns the remainder.

3. Cape Cod Today (MA): Pilgrim Nuke Alarm Sirens to be Tested for Final Time 6 Nov 2019 Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station today announced there will be a TEST of the Prompt Alert Notification System (a system of sirens) in the 10-mile area around the station on Thursday, November 14, 2019 beginning at 3:45 p.m.

The test will consist of a steady, three-minute siren tone beginning at 3:45 p.m. There will be no reason for the public to take any action during the test.

The siren system is in place to alert the public in the unlikely event of an emergency at Pilgrim Station, or to alert the public within the 10-mile area of any other emergency. In the unlikely event 7

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of a real emergency, the sounding of the sirens would mean that the public should man itor one of the following Emergency Alert System (EAS) radio stations for official information:

WBZ AM (Boston) - 1030 WATD FM (Marshfield) -- 95.9 WPLM FM (Plymouth) -- 99.1 WBZ FM (Boston) -- 98.5 Pilgrim ceased operation on May 31, 2019 and permanently defueled the reactor. The plant was sold for decommissioning on August 26, 2019 to Holtec International. Comprehensive Decommissioning International, a joint venture of Holtec International and SNC Lavalin is conducting the decommissioning work.

4. Energy News Network: Illinois lobbying scandal rattles alliance backing state clean energy legislation 6 Nov 2019, Kari Lydersen A lobbying scandal involving Illinois' largest power companies threatens to unravel an already tenuous coalition supporting a new round of ambitious clean energy legislation in the state.

As federal investigators issue subpoenas and search warrants related to lobbying activity by ComEd and Exelon, some clean energy and consumer advocates have already said they will no longer work with the companies. ComEd is the state's largest electric utility, serving the Chicago area and much of northern Illinois. Its parent company, Exelon, also operates six nuclear power plants in the state.

Meanwhile, the clock is ticking to extend funding for the state's solar incentives, which will likely run out of money next year without new legislation. The federal probe is widely seen to have torpedoed the bill's chances in a six-day veto session concluding next week, and cast doubt on its chances in next year's regular session.

The investigation Subpoenas issued in the federal investigation involve communications between ComEd and Exelon and at least two public officials: Martin Sandoval, a prominent state senator representing Chicago, and Michael Zalewski, a former Chicago City Council member who was reportedly seeking lobbying work with ComEd.

ComEd and Exelon have long been known to have immense political power in the Illinois Capitol, and ComEd's lobbyists include a number of former staffers of Michael Madigan, the powerful speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives. Sandoval's daughter Angie Sandoval also works for ComEd.

The homes of Zalewski along with retired ComEd lobbyist Michael McClain and Madigan staffer Kevin Quinn were searched in May by federal investigators looking into whether ComEd funneled payments to legislators in violation of lobbying rules.

Martin Sandoval's home and office were raided in September by federal agents, and the Illinois Senate was also served with a search warrant. In Securities and Exchange Commission filings, Exelon and ComEd told investors about subpoenas this summer and again in October.

The Senate search warrant sought "items related to ComEd, Exelon, any employee, officer or representative of any of those businesses, Exelon Official A, Exelon Official B, Exelon Official C, Exelon Official D, and/or any issue supported by any of those businesses or individuals, including, but not limited to, rate increases," as reported by the Chicago Tribune.

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In October, Exelon Utilities CEO Anne Pramaggiore abruptly retired, causing a dip in the company's stock price. And Exelon convened its own independent oversight board to investigate.

This federal investigation comes on the heels of an unrelated major federal sting last year that resulted in corruption-related charges against veteran Chicago council member Ed Burke, after another council member wore a wire for the FBI.

Hence in Illinois, long infamous for corruption and again in the federal spotlight, elected officials and other stakeholders appear to be on edge and eager to keep their distance from brewing scandal.

The legislation The federal investigation comes at a bad time for backers of the Clean Energy Jobs Act, a bill meant to propel the state to 100% clean energy by 2050 and provide funding to fulfill the ambitious promises of the 2017 Future Energy Jobs Act.

The 2017 law called for increasing the state's solar capacity from around 55 megawatts to about 3,000 megawatts and for securing a quarter of the state's energy from renewables by 2025.

Incentives for distributed and community solar created by the law have been wildly popular, with applicants far outpacing availability for some components of the program.

Many solar projects -

from small residential installations to 2-megawatt community solar arrays to utility-scale installations -

are in the works thanks to the Future Energy Jobs Act. But fund ing for the program is expected to run out as soon as next year, and the state is still nowhere near on track to meet the 25% renewables target or the specific solar goal.

The Clean Energy Jobs Act would provide funding to continue solar incentives and also continue the Future Energy Jobs Act's focus on making sure solar is distributed across the state and available to low-income and environmental justice communities. It would raise funds in large part by reforming the state's capacity market -

payments to generators for the promise to provide power if needed.

It would allow the state to create its own capacity market wherein renewables would be paid a premium. Currently capacity is procured through the PJM regional transmission organization, and reforms proposed by PJM could actually penalize renewables.

The proposed legislation would also allow nuclear plants to take advantage of higher capacity payments under a state market, because of their designation as zero-emissions sources. Exelon says such supports are needed or three of its six Illinois plants could close. The Future Energy Jobs Act provided supports in the form of "zero emission credits" to two of Exelon's plants, a move that critics called an unnecessary "bailout."

In PJM's 2018 auction for 2021-22 capacity, several of Exelon's northern Illinois plants weren't chosen at the prices they were offering -

among the largest chunk of nuclear ever to fail to secure payments in that auction, according to Exelon. The Quad Cities plant was able to bid in at a low enough price to be chosen only because of the state supports created by the Future Energy Jobs Act, Exelon said. The Clinton plant, which received supports under the 2017 law, is in the MISO capacity market.

The coalition The Future Energy Jobs Act was considered to have passed -

after several years of contentious negotiations -

only because of support from Exelon once the zero emission credits were added to the legislation.

Clean energy advocates, solar developers and environmental justice groups celebrated the law as landmark clean energy legislation, even as some stakeholders and residents rued the necessity of collaborating with and offering ratepayer-funded supports to Exelon.

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ComEd was also a powerful stakeholder in the negotiations, and while the utility didn't get everything it had hoped for, the bill ultimately included funding for a ComEd microgrid and other major provisions the company sought.

Hence the Clean Jobs Coalition -

including consumer groups, clean energy advocates and labor unions -

found it necessary to work with Exelon and ComEd in pushing for the Clean Energy Jobs Act. At a press conference last winter announcing the legislation, residents and reporters asked about Exelon's participation and the bill's support for nuclear, and environmental justice advocates appeared uncomfortable with the alliance.

That uneasy collaboration came apart in late October as news about the federal investigations snowballed. The Clean Jobs Coalition told Crain's Chicago Business that shortly before heading to Springfield for the start of the veto session, they voted to no longer negotiate with utilities -

including ComEd and parent company Exelon -

in pushing for the Clean Energy Jobs Act. While Exelon sought the capacity market reforms, ComEd was pushing to continue a rate-setting formula that has raised rates. Crain's reported that the coalition had voted to suspend talks with all utilities, which would include the downstate utility Ameren, another stakeholder in energy legislation.

ComEd's and Exelon's support could now be toxic for the bill, with legislators afraid of appearing to work closely with the companies under scrutiny.

At the same time it seems unlikely clean energy legislation can pass without such heavy hitters backing it, especially since the renewables industry is pushing a competing bill, called the Path to 100. Backers say that bill provides much more money upfront to ensure new renewables are built soon. It would raise funds in large part through lifting the cap on what ratepayers can be charged for renewables, from 2% to 4% of their bill.

What happens next?

The veto session, which included three days in October, continues Nov. 12-14, and the next regular session starts in January and runs through May. In early October, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said it was unlikely clean energy legislation would pass this fall.

Now it appears in doubt whether legislation can pass in the 2020 session.

Some solar developers say that without new funding for incentive programs, they may have to lay off employees they've hired since the Future Energy Jobs Act, and tell customers hoping to install solar that incentives are no longer available or certain.

Legislators have enthusiastically touted their support for renewables during and since the passage of the Future Energy Jobs Act. But the extent to which they truly back renewable energy will be tested in whether they will consider legislation to boost renewables that doesn't involve or fund Exelon and ComEd, as many see it.

5. Exchange Monitor: CH2M Entering Home Stretch of Plutonium Finishing Plant Demolition 6 Nov 2019 A Jacobs subsidiary this week is commencing the final phase of tearing down the Plutonium Finishing Plant at the Energy Department's Hanford Site in Washington state. I am proud to report that our team has safely completed lower-risk demolition of the Plutonium...

[SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED]

6. The News Courier (AL): NUKE PLANT: Uprate project nominated for award 7 Nov 2019 10 https://nrc.barbaricumanalytics.com/Home/Daily

Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant has been selected by S&P Global Platts as a finalist for the Global Energy Award -

Construction Project of the Year -

for the successful completion this year of the Extended Power Uprate (EPU) project, according to a press release from the Tennessee Valley Authority.

The $4 7 5 million EPU project was a five-year project that allows the plant to safely produce an additional 465 megawatts of carbon-free energy, which is enough electricity to power 280,000 homes. Browns Ferry is the nation's second largest power plant and is operated by TV A Winners will be announced at the Global Energy Awards gala on Dec. 12 in New York City.

"As the nation's largest public power utility, we share this recognition with everyone who benefits from Brown Ferry's clean, low-cost electricity," said Steve Bono, Browns Ferry site vice president.

"Being selected as a finalist demonstrates TV A's leadership, innovation and commitment to safety in the nuclear industry."

Browns Ferry is the first three-unit site to implement EPUs. The EPUs also solidify Browns Ferry's position as TV A's leading power producer with up to 3,933 megawatts in total power across all three units. Of the nearly 60 percent carbon-free energy TVA produces, more than 40 percent of that electricity comes from nuclear power.

EPU project In order to increase the plant's electricity output, a dedicated project team worked for nearly two years to conduct a rigorous engineering analysis and develop more than 200 plant modifications.

Before work could begin, the team presented plans to and gained approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The EPU project itself was supported by more than 50 vendors from 20 states. Final EPU modifications were made during each unit's recent refueling outage, starting in spring 2018 and running through summer 2019. During a typical refueling outage, approximately 300 additional personnel are added to the plant workforce. EPU outages require more than 150 extra personnel to support the additional work required for the uprate.

"This was a team effort all the way and demonstrates how TVA builds effective partnerships to meet the current and future energy needs of the Tennessee Valley," said Pete Donahue, EPU project lead.

EPU modifications included higher capacity pumps as well as replacement steam dryers and refurbished high-pressure turbine rotors. One of the industry issues with power uprate has been damage to the steam dryers as a result of higher steam flow. To overcome this problem, Browns Ferry replaced the steam dryers with a much more robust design capable of withstanding the higher steam flows.

In addition, TVA invested in training, control-room simulator scenarios and procedure revisions to prepare licensed operators and other employees for safe and reliable plant operations at the higher EPU power level. TV A's EPU project team conducted extensive power ascension testing on each unit to ensure safety and verify plant response before going to full EPU power.

Bill Baker, senior manager of EPU operations, noted the importance of getting operators involved early on.

"We benefited from industry learnings, as many plants have previously completed this work. We learned to engage operators early and often. We began to introduce changes and simulation tests two years before implementation. This helped operators identify challenges up front and be confident about the operation of the plant," Baker said. "This also helped us identify better processes that we are sharing across the industry."

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Baker said everyone across the plant came together to make the EPU a success, not only operators.

"Our employees are experts, and engaging them in the process built confidence across each work group in the changing conditions," he said.

By listening to employees, Baker said various design changes were developed to improve safety margins, often margins greater than existed prior to EPU.

Innovative heavy lift As part of the extended power uprate, Browns Ferry used an innovative method to move massive plant components using remote-controlled crawlers. This resulted in industry recognition with a 2019 Top Innovative Practice Award from the Nuclear Energy Institute in June.

A team of TV A and Barnhart Crane & Rigging employees combined two remote-controlled, low-profile crawler vehicles to transport 35.5 tons of feed water heater tube bundles, which measured 46 feet in length and 7 feet in diameter -

roughly the size of a school bus but twice the weight.

"These tube bundles are long and heavy," said Ashley Michael, Browns Ferry EPU implementation lead. "The typical fix for moving these kinds of components includes tracks or rails, but that would have required reinforcing the floor, which would have added extra time, labor and materials to the outage.

"Instead, we put together two remote-controlled crawlers that could operate independently to navigate through the 90-degree turns from the inside of the turbine building, through the service building, and positioned outside to be lifted by a crane."

This is the first time that a double skid-steer configuration has ever been used to remove and replace plant components of this magnitude.

"By using this method, we reduced the outage schedule by seven days. Once implemented, we finished seven days early, which is a significant cost and schedule savings for the project," Michael said.

7. KOIN (OR): Uncovering Oregon's Treasures at the Oregon Historical Society's vault 6 Nov 2019, Jeff Gianola A secret warehouse filled with treasures from Oregon's past sounds like something from an Indiana Jones movie -

but it's a real vault of artifacts from the Oregon Historical Society.

Jeff Gianola and Oregon Historical Society Executive Director Kerry Tymchuk took a tour of the warehouse where many of Oregon's treasures are kept.

"Right here is the control panels for the Trojan Nuclear Power Plant," Tymchuk said.

Trojan was Oregon's only nuclear power plant. It came online in 1976 and was decommissioned in 1992.

"Right before they imploded the whole building there it was given to use -

and before you ask, yes it's been tested, there is no nuclear fallout on it. But it's one of the most fascinating pieces because that was such an iconic part of Oregon history," Tymchuk said.

Old Portland movie theaters were an important part of history but their art deco architecture has been lost to time.

"This was the ticket book for the Fox Movie Theater in downtown Portland, where people would line up to get tickets," Tymchuk said. "And there's a big neon sign -

FOX -

and we got the neon F and O and X as well."

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"This is what was called an undertaker's body wagon, or essentially a hearse," Tymchuk said. "WO Donaldson was his name and you could imagine he might get called if someone had died... He would go out to the residence in a horse-drawn hearse pick up the body."

"Some people look at this and say, is this a dinosaur bone?" Tymchuk said. "It's not, but it's the bone of a whale and it's believed to be the bone of the whale that Lewis and Clark describe in their journals when they were here, of course in the early 1800s in the Cannon Beach area. In the journals, they write about a whale that washed up on shore."

Pulpits from historic churches are stored with some ornate woodwork.

"This is from the Vancouver Avenue First Baptist Church, which was one of the first African American churches in North Portland," Tymchuk said. "This dates back to 1948... it was made from apple crates."

"These two wheels are from the Battleship Oregon, and one of the great stories of Oregon history, the Battleship Oregon was called the Bulldog of the Navy back in the late 1890s," Tymchuk said. "It was stationed in San Fransisco when the Spanish American War began, President McKinley ordered the battleship to steam to the theater of war."

It took 66 days for the ship to reach the battle and by then the war was over. It still fired up American public support of the need for the Panama Canal.

"It looks like something from Game of Thrones or from Gaston of Beauty and the Beast, who used antlers in all his decorating famously," Tymchuk said. "And this is from the national or international Elks convention that was held in Portland in 1912 and hand-carved by a fellow here in Oregon out of maple. The chair is to be used by the head Elk at the convention."

There are hundreds of chairs in the vault. Some made their way west with the pioneers on the Oregon Trail but two are among the most significant.

"These two chairs... they were a wedding gift to a fellow named Captain Robert Gray who in the 1790s gets credit for discovering the Columbia River," Tymchuk said. "Even though as he sailed up the river the Native Americans were waving at him but they didn't get credit for discovering it his ship was called the Columbia Rediviva, he named the river after his ship."

These colorful stools are part of history, they came from the old lunch counter at the downtown Portland Newberry's. The lunch counter is also in the collection.

"Formica counter from downtown Newberry's, where people would go down and have lunch...

drink sodas, have burgers and fries and occasionally as you look up here -

stick their gum underneath the counters," Tymchuk said. "We still have some of the gum actually here underneath the counter. We have historic gum."

Track horses and cowboys are also part of Oregon's history. The vault is home to dozens of historic saddles but one is most treasured.

"So this saddle, you see 'let er buck'? And that's the theme of course of the great Pendleton Roundup," Tymchuk said. "Well this saddle was presented to a cowboy named Jackson Sundown who was a Native American cowboy and he won this for winning the bronco busting contest back in the 1916 Pendleton Roundup. So this 103-year-old saddle is just gorgeous and we keep it in tip-top shape right here with this collection of other saddles."

Jeffs tour of the treasures of Oregon is just getting started. Over the next few weeks, he'll discover and uncover more treasures that tell the story of Oregon.

"History is the past, history is who we are and why we are the way we are," Tymchuk said. "We've got to preserve history. Show future generations what past generations did and collected. How they lived, what they saved, what was important to them. So we got a little bit of everything here."

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Related News

8. Aiken Standard (SC): Extra furnace bolsters weapons-related mission at Savannah River Site 6 Nov 2019, Colin Demarest A previously unused industrial furnace at the Savannah River Site has been fired up, buttressing tritium operations there at a time when the related defense mission is expected to significantly expand.

The site, about 30 minutes south of Aiken, now has two furnaces to use in the tritium extraction process. This latest furnace was put into service sometime this year, Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, the lead contractor at the site, and the National Nuclear Security Administration, a semiautonomous U.S. Department of Energy agency, announced Tuesday.

Tritium is a key part of modern nuclear weapons. The rare radioactive hydrogen isotope increases efficiency and yield - the boom, basically.

The Savannah River Site for decades has been the nation's only supplier of tritium for U.S. nuclear weapons. The gas is harvested from rods that were irradiated in a nuclear reactor. It can also be recycled.

From 2007 to 2017, only a single tritium extraction per year was done. But in 2017, three extractions were done. That was a first.

SRNS and the NNSA, the latter dedicated to weapons and related nonproliferation, in a joint statement described the extra furnace as "a stepping stone to readiness for the coming workload."

Savannah River Nuclear Solutions President and CEO Stuart Macvean last month told the S.C.

Governor's Nuclear Advisory Council the tritium work at the site was a growing business. The intent, officials have said, is to reach eight tritium extractions per year around 2025.

The second furnace will help match the increasing demand, according to Wallis Spangler, the Savannah River Nuclear Solutions senior vice president for NNSA operations and programs.

In August, the Nuclear Weapons Council visited the Savannah River Site. The council - meant to interface related defense and energy projects - was briefed on plutonium pit production, another weapons mission, and tritium production.

Gen. John Hyten, then the commander of U.S. Strategic Command, applauded what was being done locally.

The NNSA manager at the Savannah River Site, Nicole Nelson-Jean, has said the Nuclear Weapons Council spent "an extensive amount of time" at the tritium facilities.

"So it was an extremely productive trip, and very positive overall," Nelson-Jean said, speaking at the same advisory meeting as Macvean.

9. ExchangeMonitor: Savannah River Hit Tritium Extraction Goals in 2019. With Twin Furnaces Fired Up 6 Nov 2019 Savannah River Nuclear Solutions said Tuesday it has commissioned a second furnace to prepare for four planned tritium extractions next year at the Department of Energy's Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C.

The Fluor-led site management and operations contractor said in a press release it had fired up a "previously unused" second furnace some time this year for the National Nuclear Security 14 https://nrc.barbaricumanalytics.com/Home/Daily

Administration (NNSA): DO E's semiautonomous nuclear weapons steward. The furnaces are used for the actual extraction procedure.

Tritium increases the efficiency of thermonuclear weapons. Savannah River Site personnel harvest the radioactive hydrogen isotope from tritium-producing burnable absorber rods rods irradiated in the Tennessee Valley Authority's Watts Bar Unit 1 nuclear reactor. Personnel pack that tritium into new reservoirs, which are installed in nuclear weapons at the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas.

Personnel at the Tritium Extraction Facility were slated to perform two extractions in fiscal 2019, which ended Sept. 30, then four in fiscal 2020. In 2021, the agency would ramp up to eight extractions annually, according to its 2020 budget request.

"Having a second proven furnace will help us meet the increasing demands of that mission," Wallis Spangler, senior vice president for NNSA operations and programs for Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, said in the press release.

In 2018, Savannah River personnel conducted two extractions at the tritium facility, each of which involved 300 tritium-producing burnable absorbed rods, according to the NNSA's 2020 budget request. That is a little more than half the rods irradiated by Watts Bar Unit 1 during the plant's 15th cycle in fiscal 2018, according to the request.

The NNSA's tritium budget has risen about $70 million over the past three years. The agency requested $270 million for Tritium Sustainment in 2020, up from a requested $205 million for 2019 and less than $200 million for fiscal 2018. The extra extraction cycles planned at Savannah River account for the rise, according to the agency's 2020 budget request.

The actual 2019 budget for the Tritium Sustainment account was roughly $290 million: Congress, contrary to the NNSA's request that year, included within the account $85 million to down blend highly enriched uranium into low-enriched uranium that can fuel future irradiation cycles at Watts Bar. Cutting out the uranium down blending funds leaves about $205 million in the account, as requested, for tritium operations.

10. Carlsbad Current Argus (CA): How WIPP works: Waste Isolation Pilot Plant workers get to bring their family to the site 6 Nov 2019, Adrian Hedden Anthony Alonzo and his wife Elba journeyed 2,000 feet underground so she could see what he does for a living.

Alonzo, a waste handler at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant said Elba was nervous about him going to the nuclear waste repository every day, especially since an accidental radiological release in 2014 led to a pause in operations for three years.

But during the tour last month at the WIPP, where about 200 people including workers and the family members were taken into the repository's underground mine where waste is disposed, Alonzo said his wife was able to see the facility's safety measure for herself.

He said the experienced helped quell her fears.

"She was pretty shocked when she realized how big it is," Alonzo said of his wife's tour of the underground. "She was pretty surprised about how safe it is. It made her more comfortable."

Nuclear Waste Partnership hosted two family days this year at the WIPP site, one in September and one in October.

Visitors were taken 2,150 underground to tour an area of the mine on a 75-person waste hoist.

They collected salt samples from the mine and learn from a presentation of operations such as mining, bolting and waste emplacement.

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On the surface, about 350 workers and family members got to tour an all-electric load haul dump truck, intended to reduce emissions in the underground, and learn how waste is shipped to WlPP.

Other stops on the family tour were at the contact-handled waste bay, the first station and WIPP's transportation trucks.

"The overall intention of family day was to give employees the opportunity to show their family members where they work and what they do," said NWP spokesman Bobby St. John. "WIPP employees are very proud of the important mission they are servicing for our country, by cleaning up all the transuranic waste from around the country."

St. John said informing the community about operations at WIPP is important to maintaining a positive presence in the Carlsbad Community, and ensuring the public that the facility is safe.

"The more people understand and know about WIPP, the better they understand why it is important to complete this cleanup effort," he said. "It allows the public to see that this can be done in an extremely safe and compliant manner, with the primary focus being on the safety of our employees, the public and the environment."

For Alonzo, it was also a chance to educate his two sons on the facility he's worked at for more than 20 years.

He brought his sons Nathanial, 20, and Isaiah, 14, to the tour in September where they learned how waste is brought to WIPP and prepared for disposal.

"For all the years I've been there, it was good getting to show my sons exactly what Dad does for a living," Alonzo said. "Instead of explaining it, this gives them a picture in their mind.

"After the (2014) incident, they were a little worried. This showed them that we still have a safe facility.

11. PR Newswire: Global Nuclear Fuel and X-energy Announce TRISO Fuel Collaboration 6 Nov 2019 Global Nuclear Fuel (GNF) and X-energy today announced a collaboration to produce low-cost, high-quality TRi-structural ISOtropic (TRI SO) particle nuclear fuel.

The companies have signed a teaming agreement for the purpose of developing High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium (HALEU) TRISO fuel to potentially supply the U.S. Department of Defense for micro-reactors and NASA for its nuclear thermal propulsion requirements.

"TRISO is a robust fuel form well suited for military and space applications," said Clay Sell, X-energy CEO. "The extremely high and unnecessary cost of working with HAL EU in a Category I NRC facility has, in the past, limited TRISO's economic viability in the marketplace. Utilizing X-energy's already operational state-of-the-art equipment in GNF's licensed facility changes the dynamic for TRISO-fueled reactor deployment."

"GNF is excited to team with X-energy to bring the revolutionary TRISO fuel form to market," said Jay Wileman, President & CEO, GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy. "Combining X-energy's technical knowledge and experience as the only current producer of TRISO fuel and GNF's licensed operating facility and half century of commercial fuel experience and leadership make this a formidable team."

By leveraging X-energy's currently operating commercial-scale TRISO production equipment and GNF's NRC-licensed fuel fabrication facility in Wilmington, North Carolina, the teaming arrangement is expected to produce TRISO fuel of significantly higher quality and at costs that are substantially lower than other potential manufacturers.

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TRISO coated fuels start with a uranium kernel, which is coated with three layers of pyrolytic carbon and one layer of silicon carbide. These coatings encapsulate all product radionuclei under all operating conditions. X-energy is currently manufacturing TRISO particles at a pilot fuel facility located at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. With two active U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) cooperative agreements and cutting-edge capabilities that improve production throughput while maintaining product integrity, X-energy continues to build on the TRISO fuel technology developed under the DOE Advanced Gas Reactor (AGR) Fuel Qualification Program.

12. Nuclear Energy Institute: Vox's David Roberts Speaks His Mind on Climate, Nuclear Energy 6 Nov 2019, Robbie Hayunga David Roberts, writer for Vox and Twitter influencer, joins Monica Trauzzi at Lupo Verde Osteria in D.C.'s Palisades neighborhood in this episode of"Off the Menu." Dave and Monica discuss the scale of action needed to protect the climate and how to get the right groups talking to each other.

For a problem as large scale as climate change, any viable solution is going to require concerted effort and lots ofresources. Dave and Monica talk about how the changing climate affects what he thinks about the future, what our priorities for energy research and development should be, and what role he sees for nuclear energy and other carbon-free sources.

Transcript Monica Trauzzi Well, let's say we fast forwarded to the future and everyone listened to the IPCC [United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] and we did what we were supposed to do to solve climate change and stay below the 1.5 degrees Celsius rise. How did we get there?

David Roberts It's a key hole. A lot of things would have to fall into place and go just right to get anything of the scale we need. Right? I mean there's obviously fall back positions, there's stuff the president can do through executive action without Congress. But in terms of action on the scale that I think the IPCC talks about, or that everybody now sort of... Not everybody, most people, agree we now need, it's really a long shot and I don't know the right answer to how to get there really even.

Monica Trauzzi You have two teenagers. I wonder how much of the life that they might be living in 20 years when our climate is different, how much that impacts what you're doing now and whether that really drives you in your current work.

David Roberts I'm kind of a little bit like everybody else. It's hard for me to fit in my head what I know about climate with my kids and what I think about their future. And when I think about their future, it's hard for me to sort of integrate what I know about climate into it. It's psychologically challenging. I have that same problem everybody else has. I spend a lot of time just not thinking about it just like everybody else, just to stay sane. And if I'm being totally frank, I have two healthy, sort of professional class, white male kids, like they're going to be the last ones to suffer, right?

Monica Trauzzi Yeah.

David Roberts Lots and lots of people are going to suffer a lot worse before they do.

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Monica Trauzzi You're a respected voice in the climate and energy conversation. I mean, really, you have everyone from government officials to other journalists who follow you. How do you view your role in the climate and energy conversation?

David Roberts That I think somewhat deliberate about from the beginning. The goal has always been to be a bridge, to sort of establish credibility among real climate people, the climate wonks and the and the activists and operators. You know, the people who have devoted their lives to that. But then also, and this is part of what Twitter is good for, also reach and communicate and establish relationships with, and credibility with, the sort of political writer class, the general sort of like politics writers and politics journalists.

Monica Trauzzi So what do you view the role of nuclear as? And how do you see the industry where it is right now and what do you see for the future of the nuclear industry?

David Roberts We shouldn't be arguing over how to divvy up our ridiculously tiny energy [research and development] budget in the U.S. We should be expanding it fivefold and aggressively pursuing everything that might help. And certainly, if small modular meltdown proof, all that, if those things come along, they'll be incredibly helpful. I'm sort of skeptical whether we're going to see those in time to help substantially before 2030 or 2040, maybe 2050, depending on how aggressively they get researched and pursued, but it's not like climate change is going to stop at 2050, right?

Monica Trauzzi Right.

David Roberts We're still going to need lots more energy and lots more options. So there's existing plants, pretty easy question to me. R&D on new technologies seems like a pretty easy answer to me. The real difficulty is, should we be supporting building more of existing established reactors? In that, I think there are good faith disagreements to be had.

Monica Trauzzi Well, this has been a fascinating discussion. And I know you're going to head back to the West Coast, and you have a new driver at home.

David Roberts I mean, the aspect of climate that's about getting out of cars, reducing vehicle miles traveled, density and urban form and all that, I was already very into that, but now that I have a kid who can drive, I'm really rededicating myself to that area of policy.

13. Thomas Insights: Happy Birthday Marie Curie!

7 Nov 2019, Courtney Hoff Maria Sklodowska - better known as Marie Curie - was born in Warsaw on November 7, 1867. The youngest of five children, she was the daughter of teachers and went on to take an interest in science like her father. However, after finishing secondary school, she was not allowed to attend the University of Warsaw because she was a woman, so she took secret classes around Warsaw.

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After further studies, Curie discovered a new element: Polonium, atomic number 84. Curie and her husband found that the liquid left behind after they extracted the polonium was still radioactive on its own, which she thought might be another new element. The Curies began to focus their studies to prove the existence of this second new element, but after working with these dangerous materials over time, they began to feel the effects. The radioactive materials were causing their hands to inflame, and exhaustion and illness were starting to set in.

In 1902, Marie Curie finally isolated the element, called Radium.

In 1903, Curie and her husband were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics with Henri Becquerel for their work on radioactivity. She also earned her Doctor of Science degree in 1903. After her husband's death in 1906, she assumed his job as a physics professor in the Faculty of Sciences at the Sorbonne, becoming the school's first female professor. Curie actively promoted the use of radium to alleviate suffering; during World War I, along with her daughter Irene, Curie helped in the battlefields with her portable X-ray machines.

Curie has since received many honorary degrees in science, medicine, and law and was a member of many educational and high societies around the world. She received the Nobel Prize again in 1911, but this time for Chemistry recognizing her work with radioactivity. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize and the first person to win the award twice. She died on July 4, 1934, after an illness that was believed to be caused by a lifetime of exposure to radioactive materials.

International Nuclear News

14. Reuters: Iran fuels centrifuges, resumes uranium enrichment at Fordow 6 Nov 2019, Parisa Hafezi Iran resumed uranium enrichment at its underground Fordow nuclear facility, the country's Atomic Energy Organisation (AEOI) said on Thursday, further stepping away from its 2015 nuclear deal with major world powers.

The agreement bans enrichment and nuclear material from Fordow. But with feedstock gas entering its centrifuges, the facility, built inside a mountain, will move from the permitted status of research plant to being an active nuclear site.

"After all successful preparations... injection of uranium gas to centrifuges started on Thursday at Fordow... all the process has been supervised by the inspectors of the U.N. nuclear watchdog," the AEOI said in a statement reported by Iranian media.

Iran has gradually scaled back its commitments to the deal, under which it curbed its nuclear program in exchange for the removal of most international sanctions, after the United States reneged on the agreement last year.

"The process will take a few hours to stabilize and by Saturday, when International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors will again visit the site, a uranium enrichment level of 4.5% will have been achieved," AEOl's spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi told state TV.

The United States, which withdrew from the nuclear deal in May 2018 and reimposed sanctions on Tehran, reiterated a statement from Tuesday, calling Iran's move a "big step in the wrong direction."

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said Tehran had no credible reason to expand its uranium enrichment program and Washington would continue its policy of economic pressure on Iran until it changed its behavior.

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Under the pact, Iran agreed to turn Fordow into a "nuclear, physics and technology center" where 1,044 centrifuges are used for purposes other than enrichment, such as producing stable isotopes, which have a variety of civil uses.

"All the centrifuges installed at Fordow are IR1 types. Uranium gas (UF6) was injected to four chains of lR1 centrifuges (696 centrifuges)," Kamalvandi said.

"Two other remaining chains of IR1 centrifuges (348 centrifuges) will be used for producing and enriching stable isotopes in the facility."

In pulling out of the deal, U.S. President Donald Trump said it was flawed to Iran's advantage.

Washington has since renewed and intensified sanctions on Iran, slashing the country's economically vital crude oil sales by more than 80%.

The Iranian move will further complicate the chances of saving the accord that European powers, Russia and the European Union have urged Iran to respect.

Speaking at a news conference at the end of a visit to China, French President Emmanuel Macron called Iran's latest move "grave," adding that he would speak with both Trump and the Iranians in coming days.

Responding to Washington's "maximum pressure" policy, Iran has bypassed restrictions of the deal step-by-step - including by breaching both its cap on stockpiled enriched uranium and on the fissile level of enrichment.

Iran said on Monday it was developing advanced centrifuges that can enrich uranium faster.

The biggest obstacle to building a nuclear weapon is obtaining enough fissile material -

highly enriched uranium or plutonium -

for the core ofa bomb. A central aim of the deal was to extend the time Iran would need to do that, if it chose to, to a year from about 2 to 3 months.

15. The Wall Street Journal: As Iran Expands Uranium Enrichment Activity, Risks to Nuclear Deal Rise 6 Nov 2019, Laurence Norman and Sune Engel Rasmussen Mr. Macron has led European efforts to salvage the deal after the U.S. pulled out of it last year and imposed harsh sanctions on Iran. The French leader has argued the agreement safeguards Europe's security interests and ensures Iran won't obtain a nuclear weapon in coming years.

Iran began enriching uranium Wednesday at its Fordow nuclear plant, a facility buried deep within a mountain that is considered impregnable to most conventional weapons. Enriched uranium can be used as fuel for a nuclear weapon and the nuclear deal's proponents say a 15-year ban on the activity at the site was a major Western win.

"I think that for the first time, Iran has decided in an explicit and blunt manner to leave the... agreement, which marks a significant shift," Mr. Macron said Wednesday at a press conference in China.

Tehran's move sharpened the incremental approach to expanding its nuclear program that Iran adopted in May and signals to President Trump that as long he maintains maximum economic pressure, Tehran can cause problems for the White House. It also signals to Iran's domestic audience that Tehran won't budge in the face of U.S. pressure.

The Islamic Republic has since May repeatedly urged Europe to provide relief from U.S. sanctions, saying that otherwise, it would make fresh moves away from the limits of the nuclear deal every two months.

Europe's response to Iran's steps away from the deal limits so far has been tepid, providing Tehran with little incentive not to go further. Paris has tried to arrange a truce between Washington and 20 https://nrc.barbaricumanalytics.com/Home/Daily

Tehran, although President Trump and Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei have both at times dismissed the efforts.

However, the mood may be changing in Europe, diplomats say, as Iran's breaches continue and concerns about other Iranian nuclear activities build.

Some key European decision makers, like Britain, already appear more willing to consider triggering a dispute mechanism in the 2015 deal, which could eventually unravel the accord and reimpose international sanctions on Iran. Diplomats say there have been discussions between the big European powers on what Iranian moves would trigger the dispute mechanism in recent weeks.

Britain's Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said Tuesday that the Ford ow step was a threat to the U.K.'s national interest. And even before that, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas was warning that further Iranian nuclear steps could sink the deal.

Other issues are also raising concern. A United Nations atomic agency inspector was briefly held in Iran last week, a Western diplomat said. Iran's Atomic Energy Organization said the inspector was held for a routine check of her equipment.

The U.N. atomic agency also said Wednesday it would hold a special board meeting this week that diplomats said would address Iran's failure to fully cooperate with a probe into radioactive material found at a secret site in Tehran.

However France continues to press its European partners to give more time for diplomacy, people involved in discussions say. Mr. Macron himself signaled that in his comments on Wednesday, saying it was crucial to continue working to relax tensions between Iran and the West. France, Britain, Germany, Russia and China, the countries that negotiated the Iranian nuclear deal with the U.S., were discussing a joint response to Iran's Fordow announcement, diplomats also said Wednesday.

European officials have made Iran's nuclear calculations easier by signaling where their red lines are. These includes significant cuts in Iran's breakout time, any move to increase uranium enrichment to 20% purity-from where it is relatively easy to produce weapons-grade material-and any moves to stymie U.N. atomic agency inspections.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Wednesday that Fordow would soon be in full operation again, as Iranian officials transferred a cylinder containing around 2,000 kilograms (4,409 pounds) of uranium gas to its enrichment hall.

The Fordow move won't have a major impact on the pace of production of enriched uranium, leaving Iran far from the so-called breakout point. But resuming enrichment at the site, whose underground location presents a major hurdle to any military effort aimed at stopping the construction of a nuclear weapon there, has high global political resonance.

Domestically, the Iranian government faces growing skepticism of the value of international diplomacy and, specifically, the nuclear accord.

European countries have been unable to provide relief from damaging U.S. sanctions, which have sparked an economic crisis that has slashed the value of the Iranian currency and sent prices skyrocketing.

As Iran finds itself arguably worse off than before entering the 2015 accord, President Rouhani has come under attack from conservatives in the run up to next year's parliamentary elections. Regular announcements about nuclear advances thus serve a useful domestic purpose for Mr. Rouhani-even if some appear more spin than substance.

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In recent weeks, Iran has made much fanfare of new research work on more advanced centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium. Yet Western experts say that Iran is probably years away from being able to successfully deploy these machines en masse.

Meanwhile, Iran is seeking to raise the costs of Washington's sanctions campaign ahead of U.S.

presidential elections, as Mr. Trump faces domestic criticism for his calls to reduce Middle Eastern military commitments.

While the Fordow announcement is unlikely to herald an attempt to breakout toward a nuclear weapon, it is another signal that Iran isn't interested in negotiating a new agreement with Mr.

Trump, said Jeffrey Lewis, director of Middlebury lnstitute's East Asia Nonproliferation Program.

"We're just going back to the running crisis of 2002-2015," he said.

16. The Washington Times: 'Urgency to act': Former top U.S. officials warn oflranian nuclear moves 6 Nov 2019, Lauren Meier Former State Department officials are warning of rising risks attached to Iran's announcement that it will begin injecting uranium gas into over 1,000 centrifuges at one of its main underground facilities beginning at Thursday at midnight.

The latest move, announced Wednesday, will allow Iran to enrich uranium "far beyond any limitation that it agreed to the Iran nuclear agreement," Marc Ginsberg, a former U.S. ambassador to Morocco, told a Capitol Hill briefing organized by a leading umbrella group of anti-regime organizations.

Speaking at an event hosted by the Organization of Iranian-American Communities on Capitol Hill, he said "Iran is determined to get nuclear weapons, Iran is determined to inflict pain and suffering on America and its allies in the Middle East."

The discussion largely focused on the increase in domestic suppression and regional aggression by Tehran, and highlighted speakers including Sens. Ted Cruz, Texas Republican, and John Boozman, Arkansas Republican.

Ambassador Robert Joseph, the former envoy for nuclear nonproliferation under the Bush administration, said "the urgency to act should be evident to all. This is a call to action."

"Iran is moving step by step to openly reconstitute its nuclear weapons capabilities," Mr. Joseph said.

He explained the latest development constitutes a "strong bipartisan resolve to meet the threat."

"Only a free and democratic Iran will end the threat, the terrorist threat, the national threat, and the nuclear threat that we face today," Mr. Joseph added.

A spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Behrouz Kamalvandi, told state television that the uranium enrichment will rise up to 4.5%, but is "reversible" if European nations allow Iranian oil to be sold in its markets.

The 4.5% level, while significantly below weapons-grade levels, is enough to help power Iran's only nuclear power plant, the Associated Press reported.

U.S. sanctions have been enforced on Iranian oil as well as its economic industry in the wake of the President Trump's withdrawal in 2018 from the Obama-era nuclear accord, and after several military altercations over the summer between Iran and the U.S., the United Kingdom, and Saudi Arabia.

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The latest move also increases pressure on European countries to remain in an agreement that has been subject to scrutiny as several nations have accused Iran of violating their accord. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has threatened to withdraw from the deal at the start of 2020 if promised relief from economic sanctions is not delivered.

If Iran were to pull out of the deal with European nations, various surveillance methods and accountability procedures would be at risk of ending.

"We cannot tolerate unilateral fulfillment of our commitments and no commitment from their side,"

Mr. Rouhani said Wednesday.

Several international organizations have condemned Tehran's recent steps to breach the 2015 deal, and European Union spokesperson Maja Kocijancic said the group is "concerned" by the announcement.

State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said in a statement that "Iran has no credible reason to expand its uranium enrichment program, at the Fardo facility or elsewhere, other than a clear attempt at nuclear extortion that will only deepen its political and economic isolation."

17. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: Members of US Congress refuse to benefit from the Iran nuclear deal 6 Nov 2019, John Krzyzaniak Bucking a trend in its maximum pressure campaign, last week the Trump administration decided that it would renew sanctions waivers for Iran's civil nuclear program. One of those waivers has allowed British and Chinese scientists to help Iran redesign the heavy water reactor at Arak to be used for peaceful purposes. Now, members of US Congress, including Senators Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham as well as Representative Liz Cheney, want to bar the administration from renewing waivers for Arak in the future, which would effectively prevent the United States from reaping a key benefit from the nuclear deal. Apparently, those legislators don't like having their cake and eating it too.

When Iran and the major world powers signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2015, one of the stipulations was that the Arak reactor would be partially destroyed, redesigned, and rebuilt with the help and supervision of foreign experts.

Why was redesigning Arak important to the United States? A heavy water reactor takes natural uranium as its fuel. Once that fuel is burned up, plutonium can be extracted from it. So, the Arak reactor would have presented a major proliferation risk if it had become operational under its original design. It would have given Iran an alternative pathway to a nuclear bomb that did not involve uranium enrichment.

With the JCPOA, Iran agreed to remove and destroy part of the reactor core, called the calandria, which it did in early 2016. It also agreed to redesign the reactor to have a lower power capacity and to use low-enriched uranium instead of natural uranium as the fuel. These changes would reduce the amount of plutonium in the spent fuel to less than one kilogram per year, meaning the Arak reactor could never be used for a nuclear weapons program. It was a win for nonproliferation.

After some delays, the redesign has recently been moving ahead and even picking up pace. In July, the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, Ali Akbar Salehi, said, "The joint committee tasked with redesigning the Arak Heavy Water Reactor Facility-comprised of Iran, China and Britain-is performing its job well." A delegation of British and Chinese experts visited Iran in October to continue with the project.

By trying to force the Trump administration to cancel the waiver for international collaboration on the project, members of US Congress want to deny the United States a major benefit of the nuclear deal by halting the very operation that would make the reactor proliferation-resistant.

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Sanctioning the project would also raise the risk that Iran will revert to the original reactor design.

In July, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani threatened just that, stating, "if you don't operate

[ according to] the program and time frame of all the commitments you've given us, we will return the Arak reactor to its previous condition."

His threat was not an empty one. In January, Salehi claimed that while Iran was negotiating the nuclear deal, it secretly imported a set of replacement tubes for the calandria: "When they told us to pour cement into the tubes, we did.... We said, 'Fine. We will pour.' But we did not tell them that we had other tubes. Otherwise, they would have told us to pour cement into those tubes as well."

These spare parts would enable Iran to make good on Rouhani's threat.

Some have argued that Iran's illicit procurement of replacement parts needs to be punished, and that suspending the waiver is a good way for Washington to do so. But that would amount to cutting off the nose to spite the face. Also, while the secret procurement does deserve to be punished, putting a halt to the redesign would only prove to Iran that it did the right thing, because the tubes may prove useful.

By contrast, allowing the conversion to proceed to its conclusion would teach Iran that their deception was a wasted effort. The replacement parts would then be useless for Arak, nor could they be used elsewhere: Iran does not have another heavy water reactor project in the works and is forbidden from building one under the JCPOA for 15 years.

It's important to remember that the conversion of the Arak reactor was a demand made by the West. Even though the United States has withdrawn from the nuclear deal and has re-instated a far-reaching sanctions regime, it's still deriving important nonproliferation benefits. Why throw them away?

18. Reuters: Exclusive: Iran briefly held IAEA inspector, seized travel documents -

diplomats 6 Nov 2019, Francois Murphy and John Irish Iran briefly held an inspector working for the U.N. nuclear watchdog in the Islamic Republic and seized her travel documents, diplomats familiar with the agency's work said on Wednesday, with some describing it as harassment.

The incident appears to be the first of its kind since Tehran's landmark deal with major powers was struck in 2015, imposing restrictions on Iran's nuclear activities in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions.

Hours after Reuters reported the incident, Iran confirmed that it had prevented an inspector from accessing its Natanz site -the heart of its uranium enrichment program - last week, because of a concern that she might be carrying "suspicious material", according to the Fars news agency.

The episode comes at a time of heightened friction between Iran and the West, with Tehran breaching the deal's restrictions step-by-step in response to Washington's withdrawal from the deal and renewed sanctions. The International Atomic Energy Agency is also in transition, with a new chief taking over next month.

The incident is due to be reported on at a meeting of the IAEA's 35-nation Board of Governors on Thursday convened at short notice to discuss "two safeguards matters" not specified in the agenda, which was circulated on Monday.

"The agency wants to show how seriously they are taking this. It is a potentially damaging precedent," one Western official said.

Three diplomats familiar with the agency's work said the female inspector had her travel documents taken, and two said she was briefly held.

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"REAL CONCERN" An IAEA spokesman and Iran's ambassador to the agency declined to comment.

"There is a real concern that it will harm how (the IAEA) carry out their inspections in the future," a European diplomat said.

The deal, which the IAEA is policing, allows for 130-150 inspectors from the agency designated for Iran. It also says Iran will grant the IAEA "regular access, including daily access as requested by the IAEA, to relevant buildings at Natanz".

Thursday's IAEA Board of Governors meeting was convened on Monday even though the board is due to hold a regular quarterly meeting just two weeks later.

The other safeguards matter due to be discussed on Thursday is Iran's less than full cooperation with the IAEA in explaining how uranium traces were found at a site in Tehran that Israel called a "secret atomic warehouse", diplomats said.

Two months after Reuters first reported that samples taken at the site had shown traces of uranium, the IAEA for the first time on Wednesday told member states at a closed-door briefing that it had found uranium traces at a site it did not name, but diplomats at the meeting said it was clearly that site.

The IAEA confirmed to member states that the traces from samples taken in February were of uranium that was processed but not enriched, and that the explanations provided by Iran so far did not hold water, diplomats said.

The IAEA has long declined to confirm that it found uranium traces at the site, known as Turqazabad, which Iran has said was a carpet-cleaning facility. But its acting chief told Iran in September that "time is of the essence" in answering its questions, and he reported an improvement in Iran's cooperation last month.

IN A BIND The incident with the inspector further complicates the task of the deal's remaining signatories -

France, Britain, Germany, Russia and China - who want to prevent deal total collapsing.

On Wednesday, however, Iran further raised pressure on those countries by announcing what would be a new breach of the deal - enriching uranium with the centrifuges it has at Fordow, a site that it dug in secret inside a mountain, apparently to protect it from potential aerial bombardment.

The deal banned enrichment at Ford ow but allowed Iran to keep around 1,000 centrifuges there, turning the site into a "nuclear, physics, and technology center" where no nuclear materials are present. One project being pursued there is the production of stable isotopes here Iran has already breached the deal's limits on the purity to which it enriches uranium, its stock of enriched uranium and its ban on using advanced centrifuges for enrichment rather than research, each step raising pressure on the remaining parties to the deal aiming to prevent its total collapse.

19. Financial Times: Suspected North Korea hackers targeted Indian space agency 7 Nov 2019, Stephanie Findlay, Edward White and Song Jung-a India's space research agency was warned of a cyber attack in the middle of a landmark moon mission as part of a broader assault by suspected North Korean hackers, cyber security consultants with data on the incidents said.

The attack on the Indian Space Research Organisation (!SRO) was flagged during its much-hyped Chandrayaan-2 moon mission in September that ended in failure.

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The latest revelation comes after the country's nuclear authority confirmed last week the Kudankulam nuclear plant in the southern state of Tamil Nadu had also been hit by a cyber attack.

The space research organisation was one of at least five critical government agencies, including India's Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, to have been attacked in recent months, said Yash Kadakia, founder of Security Brigade, a Mumbai-based cyber security company.

People associated with the agencies opened phishing emails sent by the hackers, potentially unleashing malware into their systems.

!SRO confirmed that it had been warned of a cyber attack but said it had found nothing suspicious after an investigation. The Nuclear Power Corporation of India initially issued a similar denial following reports the Kudankulam plant had been hacked before clarifying that malware had entered one of its networks.

"Our systems were not compromised and our systems were not affected," said an official at the space agency, adding that the moon mission itself had not been impacted.

The attacks will raise concern that suspected North Korean hackers are targeting the critical infrastructure of foreign countries to disrupt operations, steal technology or sell information.

Narendra Modi, India's prime minister, has championed the country as an elite space power. But the Chandrayaan-2 mission, which was to be the first to land on the unexplored south pole of the moon, ended in failure about seven weeks after it was launched.

The !SRO official said its core systems were isolated from the attack. "We have an internal network which is 100 per cent isolated from the internet," the official said.

Hackers have been hitting India's atomic agencies since 2018, using phishing emails containing malware, said Simon Choi of lssuemakers Lab, a non-profit intelligence organisation based in Seoul that monitors North Korean hackers.

Mr Choi said he had data showing the emails had targeted senior members of the Indian nuclear energy industry, including Shiv Abhilash Bhardwaj, former chairman of the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, and Anil Kakodkar, former director of the Atomic Energy Commission of India.

He added the attack on the Kudankulam nuclear power plant had also employed phishing emails.

Mr Bhardwaj was not immediately available for comment. Mr Kakodkar said he had only "read this from newspapers and I have no further information".

Mr Choi said: "A group known as DarkSeoul or Operation Troy, which hacked South Korea's defence ministry and banks, actually penetrated into the nuclear power plant after another group known as Kimsuky did some surveillance and gathered information.

"The latest hacking events in India show that North Korea's attention has shifted to key infrastructure facilities of other countries, and it shows that it can successfully penetrate them."

But cyber security experts cautioned that attributing an attack to a particular actor can be fraught.

One Asia-based cyber analyst who had reviewed the attack but did not want to be named said that while it was "unlikely", the techniques used by the hackers could have been used by another actor to apportion blame to North Korea.

Mr Kadakia of Security Brigade said he had compiled a list of 13 recipients of phishing emails spanning at least five government agencies, including !SRO, after reviewing data from the server compromised by the hackers. Some of the phishing emails were sent to private Gmail accounts.

While Mr Kadakia said he could verify the officials were targeted and that they had opened the links potentially unleashing malware, he could not confirm if a virus infected other computers in the agencies.

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"This is not really rocket science, it wasn't really anything cutting edge, it was a phishing email, an unpatched browser and a lack of monitoring," said Mr Kadakia. "They clicked the links and opened the malware."

Sohn Young-dong, a defence expert at Hanyang University in Seoul, said Pyongyang might be using the attacks to seek nuclear technology to help overcome its own energy crisis. Equally, it could equally be aiming to "sell such information to countries like Iran".

The US government's Congressional Research Service has detailed that a 2014 attack on South Korea's nuclear plant operator -

attributed to North Korea by officials in Seoul -

resulted in designs and manuals being published and that the "hackers intended to cause a malfunction at atomic reactors, but failed to break into their control system".

20. The Quint: Exclusive: N Korea Stole Data From Kudankulam Attack. Says Expert 6 Nov 2019, Sushovan Sircar The cyber attack by suspected North Korea-based hackers on the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant in September was intended specifically for information theft and The Quint has now been told that the actors were able to steal technology-related data from the plant's IT systems.

lssueMaker Labs, an expert group of malware analysts based in South Korea who have tracked the North Korean actors suspected to be behind the attack since 2008, told The Quint that the actors were backed by the North Korean government and stole data by deploying a malware designed for data theft.

"We have found that Nuclear Power Plant technology-related data has been taken," Simon Choi, founder of IssueMaker Labs told The Quint.

The Lab had mentioned on Twitter on 2 November that North Korea has been interested in information about thorium-based nuclear power and since 2018 have continuously attempted to attack plants and individuals in several countries to obtain that information.

Adding to this, Choi said they found evidence that "the hackers of North Korea disguised as employees of Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) and Bhabha Atomic Research Centre of India (BARC) and sent hacking mails to their chairmen and other senior experts". This includes nuclear scientists like Anil Kakodkar and former chairman of AERB, SA Bharadwaj.

Issue Makers Lab, which has shared substantial evidence on Twitter of North Korea's role, said they also found evidence of more than one group of North Korean hackers working together to first conduct reconnaissance and subsequently deploy the malware.

India's National Cyber Security Coordinator Lt. Gen. Rajesh Pant, responded to questions from The Quint stating that an "inquiry was in progress" on the matter.

Our inquiry is still in progress and we cannot comment on South Korean reports. Analysis of computer logs for forensics involves sifting terabytes of data and is a time consuming process.

The Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL), which runs the plant in Tamil Nadu, on Wednesday, 30 October, confirmed that the "identification of malware in NPCIL system is correct".

This confirmation came after a denial on 29 October that "any attack on the Nuclear Power Plant Control System is not possible".

Experts who had raised the alarm about a cyber breach on 3 September, however, clarified that there was no claim made that an attack had taken place on the critical control systems of the plant.

A nuclear power plant typically consists of two distinct networks. One network, known as the operation technology (OT), controls the actual running of the machine and reactors responsible for 27 https://nrc.barbaricumanalytics.com/Home/Daily

power generation. This part of the plant's operations is air-gapped, meaning they are not connected to outside computers and was not breached.

The second is is information technology (IT) system which controls all other activities, including a vast trove of vital day-to-day administrative and personnel data. This IT system, which is connected to the internet, was the part of the nuclear plant that was compromised by the attack.

The NPCIL's statement also clarified that the infected computer belonged to a user who was connected to the internet. This Internet network was "isolated from the critical internal network",

the press release said.

The Quint had reported on 4 November that the South Korean malware analysts had shared evidence and analysis to buttress the claim that North Korea-based actors were indeed behind the cyber attack on the nuclear plant.

In a series of tweets since 30 October, the Lab has shared the following information:

One of the hackers who attacked India's nuclear energy sector is using a North Korean self-branded computer produced and used only in the North Korea.

The IP address used by one of the hackers was traced to Pyongyang, North Korea.

A composite history of the malware deployed allegedly by North Korean "hacker group B" or 'Dark Seoul'.

A 16-digit string-dkwero38oerA"t@# - as the password that malware uses to compress a list of files on an infected PC. They have used the same password for multiple attacks since 2007.

Verified the authenticity of the DTrack malware code used by the North Korean hackers. The experts claimed that the same malware was deployed on South Korean military's internal network in 2016 and had stolen classified information.

The Quint has learnt new information that adds to what is known about the cyber attack so far. The information serves to provide greater clarity on who is behind the attack, how it was carried out, why they attacked India's largest civilian nuclear plant and what the impact was.

Who Exactly Was Behind the Attack?

Choi, who has tracked the hacker group that allegedly attacked the nuclear plant for over a decade, said it was not one but two separate groups who worked together on this. Moreover, while the attack had been attributed to the Lazarus group, Choi said that technically the perpetrators are a separate group.

Choi said that "there are approximately seven hacker groups in North Korea. Generally we call the group which had attacked South Korea's government website in 2009 and Sony Pictures in 2014 as "Group A", which is more commonly referred to as "Lazarus Group".

"And there is "Group B" which generally attacks the Korean Army and have attacked Korean banks and networks in 2013. This group is the one that attacked KKNPP of India this time. This group is normally known as "Dark Seoul" or "Operation Troy" to people."

According to Choi "these two groups are controlled by North Korean government and they can be considered as one."

"There is also a "Group C" which attacked Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power Co Ltd in 2014. This Group C started attacking India's nuclear power plant-related persons from last year," he further added.

How Was It Carried Out?

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Choi said that the evidence they gathered suggests the attack on KKNPP was carried out by Group B and C's association. He said that while Group C was involved in reconnaissance over the last one year and sending malware to senior nuclear scientists, Group B was the one to deploy the malware on the plant's IT systems.

"When Group C gets authority by reconnaissance done on people associated with the nuclear power plant, they hand over this data collected to Group B," Choi said.

So, how did Group C go about allegedly hacking senior scientists?

"Then Group B extorts the confidential documents from NPP system. So the malware found in NPP system is Group B's malware," he added.

Why Did They Attack Kudankulam?

According to tweets put out by IssueMakers Lab, a strong assumption for the motive of the attack could be theft of information on thorium-based nuclear power.

"It looks like the KKNPP attack was not intended to cause destruction, only to extort the confidential data and reconnaissance. But if they intend to cause destruction, they would have done it by sending another malware."

"We are not sure about their intention but it was dangerous situation. North Korea maybe wanted to collect the new NPP technology of India rather than destroying them and be opposed to India,"

Choi told The Quint.

Corroborating this claim, Pukhraj Singh had told The Quint, "The remit of the actor was technology theft, but a motivated adversary hell-bent on power projection would have just waltzed in too."

What Was The Impact?

The big question was, if North Korea-based actors have indeed launched a cyber attack whose remit was to steal intelligence and information, then were they successful in doing so?

Yes they were, according to Choi and other experts at Issue Makers Lab.

Cybersecurity researcher Anand Venkatanaryanan told The Quint that "D-Track is a data-theft malware. Issue Maker Labs has been tracking North Korea for a long time. All the data points, malware reverse engineering and the analysis along with the IP address used point very clearly to the North Korean involvement."

"While attribution in Cyber is hard, this is as good as it gets. Ifwe needed more confirmation, we would need human spies within the North Korean security establishment," Venkatanarayanan added.

21. Power Engineering International: Russia and Rwanda to build Centre for Nuclear Science and Technology 6 Nov 2019 Russia and Rwanda have signed an agreement to construct the first Centre of Nuclear Science and Technologies in Rwanda with the participation of ROSATOM. The signing ceremony took part at the Russia-Africa Economic Forum in October in Sochi.

The agreement to construct Rwanda's first Centre for Nuclear Science and Technology (CNST) was signed by ROSATOM director general Alexey Likhachev and Rwanda's Minister of Infrastructure Claver Gatete.

The CNST will become a modern platform for carrying out a whole range of scientific research and practical application of nuclear technologies. It will allow the production ofradioisotopes for 29 https://nrc.barbaricumanalytics.com/Home/Daily

widespread use in industry and agriculture, as well as in healthcare, thus addressing the issue of lack of cancer treatment.

Top headline in nuclear power Kudankulam nuclear plant confirms malware, denies cyber attack Moreover, the Centre will facilitate the analysis of elemental composition of ore and minerals and environmental samples, train highly qualified local personnel for the nuclear industry, contribute to digital technologies research and many others.

The CNST is expected to comprise of a multi-purpose research water-cooled reactor with up to 10 MW capacity. It will be equipped with laboratories, systems and functional units necessary for safe operation.

Partnerships forged at the Russia-Africa Economic Forum The forum served as a platform to establish new and confirm existing relationships between Russia and Africa, especially in terms of developing nuclear power on the continent.

According to Alexey Likhachev of Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation: "Our specialists have been working on the African continent for several decades. In recent years, this work has been given a new boost both in terms of its form and content".

"We have fully established the regulatory framework with a third of African countries, all the way up to the contractual framework. Half of them already have and are actively discussing specific joint projects with us, which are stipulated in a contract", Likhachev said.

Demand for nuclear power and related expertise are increasing as Africa undergoes industrialization and urbanization and Russia will be supporting through key investments and sharing of competencies.

The Forum identified priority areas of economic cooperation in which concrete results can be achieved in the coming years. The main areas identified were energy, including renewables, infrastructure development, digital technologies, oil and gas exploration, science and education.

22. Taipei Times: Japan accused of trying to justify nuclear dump 6 Nov 2019, Lin Chia-nan The Japanese government's claim that it will run out of room to store radiation-contaminated water at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in two years is not true, and is simply an attempt to justify discharging polluted water into the Pacific Ocean, a Greenpeace International member said yesterday.

Shaun Burnie, senior nuclear specialist at Greenpeace Germany who has conducted long-term surveys in Japan, was invited by Greenpeace Taiwan to talk about the issue at a news conference in Taipei.

An earthquake and a tsunami in March 2011 caused the plant's reactor fuel rods to melt and large amounts of radioactive-contaminated water was released into the Pacific.

As of Oct. 22, more than 1 million cubic meters of processed polluted water was stored at the treated water storage tank, while the current storage capacity is nearly 1.1 million cubic meters, Burnie said.

Tokyo Electric Power Co in August said the tank would reach full capacity by the summer of 2022 and that there is no room for expansion at the site, he said.

However, the company in a meeting in September said that land is available to build additional tanks, Burnie added.

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The claim of insufficient capacity is just an excuse to cover the Japanese government's political agenda, Burnie said, adding that Tokyo has the option of storing contaminated water for a longer period.

If Japan approves the discharge, radioactive tritium and other radionuclides in the water will likely enter the East China Sea, and eventually the waters surrounding Taiwan through the subtropical gyre, he said.

However, even if the Japanese government decides to discharge polluted water into the ocean, it would not be able to carry out the plan immediately, as it might take years to build outflow pipelines, he said.

In addition to protests from local fishers, especially those living along Japan's Tohoku coast, the Japanese government would face strong pressure from the international community for discharging polluted water, he said, adding that it is a long-term problem that should be approached more cautiously.

The Fukushima Dai-ichi disaster has led to catastrophic results, and the Taiwanese government should be lauded for making the "brave and correct" decision to phase out nuclear power plants, Burnie said.

Taiwan should call on the Japanese government, via diplomatic or non-governmental channels, to shoulder its responsibility as a Pacific nation and not discharge radiation-contaminated water into the sea, National Nuclear Phase-out Action Platform spokesperson Tsuei Su-hsin said.

As Taiwan generates less than 10 percent of its electricity from nuclear power -

much lower than the ratio in Japan before the 2011 disaster, it should persist in its goal of phasing out all nuclear power plants by 2025, Tsuei said.

23. The Associated Press: CERN appoints Gianotti. first female chief, to second term 6 Nov 2019 The European research center that runs the world's largest atom smasher says it has reappointed Italian physicist Fabiola Gianotti, its first female director, for a second five-year term.

CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, says Gianotti's appointment marks the first time its director-general has been named for a second full term. It will begin on Jan. 1, 2021.

Gianotti, 59, headed a key CERN experiment between 2009 and 2013, when the center's 27-kilometer (17-mile) circumference Large Hadron Collider helped confirm the subatomic Higgs boson seven years ago.

CERN has some big long-term projects like a high-luminosity LHC that will vastly increase the potential for scientific discoveries starting in 2026, and a multibillion-euro project to build a 100-kilometer (60-mile) circumference "Future Circular Collider" that could start operating in 2040.

Editorials

24. The Wall Street Journal: Iran's Nuclear Escalation: Time for Europe to join the U.S. maximum-pressure campaign 6 Nov 2019 President Hassan Rouhani has announced that Iran will violate restrictions on the Fordow underground nuclear facility starting Wednesday. President Trump's detractors will say this proves that leaving the 2015 nuclear deal was a mistake, but this is one more sign of the defects in the deal that Europe should be helping the U.S. to address.

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In a speech Tuesday the Iranian leader said the regime would begin injecting gas into the 1,044 centrifuges at Fordow, an open violation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. This follows news on Monday that Iran is running new and advanced centrifuges, which shortens its path to a nuclear weapon. The regime already has been openly violating the deal for months by enriching uranium at higher concentrations and storing more of it.

"When they uphold their commitments we will cut off the gas," said Mr. Rouhani. "So it is possible to reverse this step." The Iranian strategy has been to escalate its violations of the deal step by step, hoping to intimidate Mr. Trump and divide the U.S. from Europe.

The strategy worked for a time, but then Iran attacked Saudi oil fields. German, French and British leaders responded in a statement that Iran should "accept negotiation on a long-term framework for its nuclear programme as well as on issues related to regional security, including its missiles programme and other means of delivery."

It was a fine statement-and no small feat that Europe called for a new deal-but now Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron and Boris Johnson have to do more than talk. On Monday the Trump Administration announced fresh sanctions against advisers to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the latest pressure against the country's authoritarian ruling class. Nothing would focus minds in Tehran more than Berlin, Paris, London and Washington coming together to reimpose the so-called snap-back sanctions that were supposed to be the response to Iranian nuclear escalation.

The U.S. wants a revised deal to limit Iranian ballistic missile development, allow unlimited inspections of suspect nuclear sites, and remove the sunset clauses that allow restrictions on Iran to expire. Recall that Barack Obama initially wanted the Ford ow facility closed in the deal but was unable to get the Iranians to agree to anything beyond the limited restrictions they are now reversing. President Trump's pressure campaign is meant to bring the regime back to the negotiating table with more leverage than Mr. Obama had.

One risk is that the mercurial Mr. Trump loses patience with his own strategy and tries to cut a deal favorable to Tehran ahead of his re-election campaign. That's why you can expect more Iranian threats to break out of the deal and perhaps more attacks on U.S. allies in the Middle East. The best response is for Europe and the U.S. to reforge a common front toward Iran that shows it will have to return to the negotiating table to have any hope of sanctions being eased.

Opinions

25. Arizona Daily Sun: Protecting the Grand Canyon area from uranium mining 6 Nov 2019, Rep. Tom O'Halleran I am proud to represent Arizona's First Congressional District, which is home to the Grand Canyon.

I remember the first time I visited the Grand Canyon, and the first time I showed it to my grandchildren. Anyone who has been lucky enough to visit this natural wonder can see that it is truly a national treasure.

Last week, the House of Representatives took historic action to protect this treasure by passing the Grand Canyon Centennial Protection Act.

This legislation does more than just preserve our canyon for the enjoyment of future generations. It protects the health of Arizonans, our water supply, and our state's tourism economy. It also safeguards this culturally and religiously significant place for many Native American communities.

To this day, uranium mining has a toxic legacy in northern Arizona. Cancer diagnoses among families living in nearby communities are extremely high when compared to the national average.

Studies have shown that this is a direct result of uranium exposure in the area.

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On the Navajo Nation alone, there are over 500 abandoned uranium mine sites. Tens of thousands of individuals -

including miners, transporters, and other employees who worked directly in uranium mines -

along with communities located near nuclear weapon test sites, were exposed during the mid-1900s to dangerous radiation that has left communities struggling from cancer, birth defects, and other illnesses.

Unfortunately, uranium mining affects more than the health of our people -

it jeopardizes the health of our water as well.

Furthermore, it is important to note that this withdrawal from new uranium mining claims does not jeopardize our energy market or our national security by forcing us to seek foreign sources.

According to federal data, both New Mexico and Wyoming have three times the amount of uranium reserves as Arizona, Colorado, and Utah have combined. Our uranium imports are lower than they have been in fifteen years, and Canada is our largest supplier.

Above all else, the Grand Canyon is, and will always remain, a place of deep spiritual significance to many native communities in the southwest, and a home to the Havasupai Tribe. It is due largely in part to the work and firsthand knowledge of these Native American communities that this historic legislation was brought to the forefront of our national discussion, and to the floor of the House of Representatives for a vote.

The Grand Canyon Centennial Protection Act takes a crucial first step in safeguarding our communities and our water from the dangers of uranium mining. We must ensure that the senate takes up this important bill and gets it to the president's desk to be signed into law. We must also ensure that we continue to work to reclaim and remediate abandoned mine sites and help to mitigate health risks for nearby families.

To open the Grand Canyon to uranium mining is to ignore our responsibility to the communities who find it sacred and the millions of Americans whose water flows from it. I look forward to collaborating with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, local stakeholders and advocates, and members of our Native American communities to ensure this bill becomes law. The Grand Canyon is too precious to lose.

26. The Wahkiakum County Eagle (WA): Often repeating a lie doesn't make it true 6 Nov 2019, JB Bouchard To The Eagle, Let's straighten out one twisted fact mentioned in an opinion piece last week I refer to the repeated lie that "Hillary Clinton sold 20 percent of our uranium to Russia."

Folks who have casually smeared Clinton's reputation by Trumpeting fake facts about her performance at the state department will no longer be receiving a free pass to traffic in such innuendos.

The verifiable facts are these. In 2010 Rosa tom, a Russian nuclear power consortium, purchased controlling interest in Uranium One, an American uranium mining company.

According to Peter Grier, staff reporter for the Christian Science Monitor, and Louis Nelson of Politico, during that purchase, Clinton was one of nine members of a US committee weighing that transaction. While cabinet heads made up the committee, such positions were nominal. As is often the case in government, subordinates go to the meetings and do the work.

Further, they reported: Because uranium is considered an asset with national security implications, the sale to Rosatom was subject to approval by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, an intragovernmental agency that included input from the Departments of State, Treasury, 33 https://nrc.barbaricumanalytics.com/Home/Daily

Justice, Energy, Defense, Commerce and Homeland Security, as well as the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. They unanimously approved the transaction.

Clinton never had the power to approve the deal on her own.

With its purchase of Uranium One, Rosatom assumed control of roughly 20 percent of uranium production capacity in the U.S. Since then, other new mining firms have reduced that figure to about 10 percent, according to a lengthy investigation of Uranium One assets by The Washington Post.

The license issued to Rosa tom by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, prohibits the company from exporting uranium outside the country, according to OilPrice.com.

There it is. Now, who's next?

27. OilPrice.com: Nuclear Energy Is Not The Enemy 6 Nov 2019, Haley Zaremba 11,000 scientists have declared a climate emergency and warned of "catastrophic threat" to humanity and "untold suffering" in a paper published this week in Oxford University Press' peer-reviewed BioScience journal. The paper, titled "World Scientists' Warning of a Climate Emergency" begins: "Scientists have a moral obligation to clearly warn humanity of any catastrophic threat and to 'tell it like it is.' On the basis of this obligation and the graphical indicators presented below, we declare, with more than 11,000 scientist signatories from around the world, clearly and unequivocally that planet Earth is facing a climate emergency."

When science has been telling us not just for decades but for over a hundred years that human production of greenhouse gases will cause global warming, why are we still so resistant to decarbonizing our energy industry? We have the technology and we have the urgency, so what's holding us back?

Solar and wind power are cheaper than ever, issues of variability have been addressed by a booming energy storage industry and the implementation of Artificial Intelligence, and nuclear power remains one of the most efficient energy-producing methods known to man--and it has zero carbon emissions. Plenty of experts have extolled the virtues of nuclear energy and its potential to save the planet from catastrophic climate change--so why is the nuclear industry dying in places like the United States and Japan?

A huge part of the reason is that nuclear just has bad optics. Thanks to high-profile nuclear disasters like the tragedies that took place in Fukushima, Chernobyl, and Three Mile Island, the public simply distrusts the safety of nuclear power and politicians have heard their constituents loud and clear - never mind the fact that fossil fuels are ultimately much more deadly.

In fact, the deaths related to nuclear meltdown are so low that climate scientists Pushker Kharecha and James Hanson discovered that overall the use of nuclear energy actually saves lives. Their study "Prevented mortality and greenhouse gas emissions from historical and projected nuclear power",

published by NASA, found that to date, nuclear power has already saved a whopping two million lives from air pollution-related deaths resulting from the contamination that would have been produced by fossil fuels. As Oil price reported earlier this year, "Nuclear power is an incredibly clean form of energy thanks to its staggering efficiency.

The uranium used to produce nuclear power has the ability to create a whopping one million times more heat than equal masses of fossil fuels or even gunpowder. Nuclear power has the valuable ability to create massive amounts of heat without creating fire, and therefore it produces no smoke.

This means that it's a much, much cleaner alternative as compared to fossil fuels, which cause seven million premature deaths per year (according to data provided by the World Health Organization) thanks to the massive amount of smoke produced by the industry."

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In another shocking study published last month, a team of scientists determined that Japan's move away from nuclear energy in the aftermath of the 2011 Fukushima disaster, fueled by public outrage and pressure to shutter existing nuclear power plants, also cost human lives. As summarized by the Financial Times, "while closure clearly obviated the possibility of further nuclear accidents, it did not come without cost. Japan depended on atomic power for a third of its electricity. The need to restart mothballed fossil-fuel plants led to a sharp spike in the power price.

It rose by as much as 38 percent in some regions between January 2011 and the following year[... ]

this led to an increase in mortality, especially among the old. They estimate that more than 4,500 may have died as a result of the high prices that followed the nuclear shutdown, far more than the estimated 1,232 whose deaths are directly attributed to the accident -

mainly as a result of the subsequent evacuation."

The study, titled "Be Cautious with the Precautionary Principle: Evidence from Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident" therefore concluded that in the very attempt to protect the public against what were perceived to be the outsized dangers of nuclear energy, the Japanese government ultimately exposed its public to even more harm, and in many cases, even death. What's more, as the Financial Times points out, "Japan is not the only example of such an overreaction. Germany also responded to Fukushima, despite tsunamis not being much of a risk along the Baltic coastline. Angela Merkel announced the accelerated closure of its nuclear plants."

These deaths are nothing, however, compared to the potential human and environmental loss that is around the corner due to catastrophic climate change if we don't wean ourselves off of fossil fuels in a big hurry. As many scientists and experts argue, we are doing ourselves a grave injustice by demonizing nuclear at a moment when it is one of the best solutions we have. Perfect it is not, but it's a lot better than the alternative.

28. Arizona Republic: Nuclear power isn't perfect. But since when did it become the boogeyman?

6 Nov 2019, Robert Robb Some thoughts loosely tied together by the theme of nuclear power:

U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva wrote a curious column about his bill to permanently ban uranium mining near the Grand Canyon. The bill passed the House last week.

It, of course, is not curious that Grijalva wants to prohibit uranium mining in that area, something he says he has been working on since 2008.

What was curious was how he described the opposition to the bill and those pressing to reopen the land to such mining. He referred to them as "fossil fuel corporations."

There is currently a temporary ban imposed by the Obama administration. Grijalva frets that the "fossil fuel lobbyists" in key posts in the Trump administration will lift the ban.

Oil lobbyists have no interest in uranium Now, uranium isn't a fossil fuel. It is used to generate electricity from nuclear power plants.

Nuclear power competes with fossil fuels. And it produces no carbon emissions, so it is environmentally friendly.

In short, the fossil fuel industry has no reason to oppose Grijalva's bill or push to open up the area to uranium mining. If anything, Grijalva's efforts disadvantage a competitor.

So, why did Grijalva misrepresent the nature of the opposition to banning uranium mining near the Grand Canyon? It doesn't seem necessary to advance his case. Surely, uranium mining companies could serve as bogeyman enough.

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Such gratuitous misdirections are so common among politicians of all stripes that they almost seem instinctual rather than calculating. I've never really understood the phenomenon. Why make stuff up when you would have just as good of a chance of prevailing with the truth?

Why subsidize any energy source?

This isn't a brief for nuclear power. Or uranium mining near the Grand Canyon, for that matter.

Some on the right want to see nuclear power expanded as a clean energy source without the intermittency problems of solar and wind. Sen. Martha McSally has a bill to assist the expansion and modernization of the industry.

However, nuclear power has always required federal taxpayers to provide a liability backstop.

Otherwise, private investors won't stump up the capital to build them.

It's wrong to ask taxpayers to assume a risk that's too much for private investors and insurance companies to stomach.

All subsidies for energy production should be eliminated. Impose a small carbon tax to create the infrastructure for dealing with climate change, and then let the market determine the energy mix.

The United States does import roughly 90% of the uranium we use, and some of it is from unreliable sources such as Kazakhstan and Russia. But friendly allies such as Canada and Australia have ample reserves in the event of a pinch.

In general, the restrictions on natural resource production on public lands are excessive. But there isn't an urgent need to boost uranium mining in the United States.

Trade nuclear for solar? That's nuts While taxpayers shouldn't be asked to backstop the liability on new nuclear power plants, there's no reason not to maximize production from the plants that already exist, and for which such a backstop is already in place.

That's why I found a recent report by The Arizona Republic's Ryan Randazzo so jaw-dropping.

According to the news account, production from the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station west of Phoenix may need to be curtailed. Why? Because of too much solar power on the grid.

To be blunt, this is nuts.

Nuclear power is steady as she goes, sunshine or rain. Solar power is variable and intermittent.

How much will be produced and when is not totally predictable.

Nuclear power emits no greenhouse gases. From an environmental perspective, there's no reason to prefer electricity from utility-scale solar plants to that from Palo Verde.

There may be reason to prefer new capacity to come from solar rather than nuclear. But substituting new solar for existing nuclear makes no sense. Yet that, apparently, is what we're doing.

Nuclear plants aren't like natural gas generators, easy to turn off and on. So, to keep Palo Verde operating at full capacity, there's discussion of using the plant to convert water into hydrogen fuel for other generators.

This too is nuts. Arizona needs to use its water as, well, water.

Someone - at Arizona Public Service or the Arizona Corporation Commission - should have fired off warning flares well before we reached this point.

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~

U.S.NRC Unitc:J S1:a:1es Nuclc:ar Rt:guhuory Co,mnission Pror,,ring People mu/ the Environmm t NRC News

1. Tribe loses case against uranium mine: Rapid City I ournal 13 Dec 2019, Seth Tupper December 16, 2019 Daily News Brief The site of a potential uranium mine in southwest South Dakota will not have to be surveyed for cultural resources of concern to the Oglala Sioux Tribe if a decision issued Thursday by a panel of judges is upheld. The three judges with the U.S. Atomic Safety and Licensing Board wrote in their decision that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission tried diligently to cooperate with the tribe to conduct an on-the-ground survey for Native American burials, artifacts and other historical and cultural resources. The judges also wrote that the commission was justified in giving up when it became apparent the tribe would not cooperate.

2. Group protests uranium decision: Rapid City Journal 13 Dec 2019, Nathan Thompson A handful of protestors braved cold temperatures Friday evening to display their opposition to the U.S. Atomic Safety and Licensing Board decision to not survey a Black Hills site for cultural resources of concern for the Oglala Sioux Tribe.

3. Environmental, nuclear worries force Prairie Island tribe to seek new lands:

Minnesota Public Radio 13 Dec 2019, Jeffrey Jackson Schyler Martin's job calls for him to worry each day about things that could cripple or destroy the Prairie Island Indian Community, but that he can't control. The nearby Xcel Energy nuclear power plant that towers over the reservation is high on that list, as is an Army Corps of Engineers lock and dam on the Mississippi River that regularly floods tracts of tribal land upstream.

4. Environmental report details potential plans to treat. truck radioactive SRS waste:

Aiken Standard (SC) 15 Dec 2019, Colin Demarest A trio of plans that could ultimately rid the Savannah River Site of thousands of gallons of radioactive waste years ahead of schedule would have little to no negative impact or effect on workers, the public and the surrounding air and environment, according to a recently published U.S. Department of Energy draft report. The U.S. Department of Transportation strictly regulates the shipment of waste. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, more commonly known as the NRC, plays a major part, as well.

5. Few people taking advantage of potassium iodide tablets: Chatham This Week (Canada) 13 Dec 2019, Tom Morrison About five per cent of Chatham-Kent addresses within the secondary zone of two American nuclear reactors have picked up their potassium iodide tablets, which was about as many as expected, according to the public health nurse leading the project. Some residents in those communities are 1

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within 80 kilometres - what is called the ingestion planning zone or secondary zone - of either Enrico Fermi 2 Nuclear Generating Plant in Monroe, Mich. or Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station in Oak Harbour, Ohio.

6. The Tiny. Simple Nuclear Reactor That Could Change Energy: Popular Mechanics 13 Dec 2019, Caroline Delbert An Oregon energy startup has a modular nuclear power reactor 1/100th the size of a traditional reactor and is supposedly far safer. The reactors can be installed in multiples to scale up or down to a location's power needs.

7. The Next Nuclear Plants Will Be Small, Svelte, and Safer: Wired 13 Dec 2019, Daniel Oberhaus For the last 20 years, the future of nuclear power has stood in a high bay laboratory tucked away on the Oregon State University campus in the western part of the state. Operated by N uScale Power, an Oregon-based energy startup, this prototype reactor represents a new chapter in the conflict-ridden, politically bedeviled saga of nuclear power plants.

Related News

8. Amid federal probe, Illinois lawmakers back bill to repeal ComEd subsidies: The Center Square (IL) 13 Dec 2019, Cole Lauterbach With support from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, an Illinois state lawmaker has filed legislation to repeal much of the Future Energy Jobs Act, including provisions that would strip the state's largest utility of a ratepayer subsidy as federal investigators probe the company's lobbying practices.

9. Los Alamos weapons leader confident in plutonium pit outlook: Aiken Standard fill 13 Dec 2019, Colin Demarest Should the cards fall favorably, Los AJamos National Laboratory will undoubtedly uphold its end of the plutonium pit production equation, the deputy director for weapons there said Thursday.

"We're going to have assigned 30 pits per year by 2026," Bob Webster, the deputy director, said at the half-day Nuclear Modernization Seminar. "And we're going to get there if the funding shows up, and we install the machines, and we train the people, we bring on the workforce that does all the support work."

10. Nuclear tech company to locate research center in New Mexico: The Associated Press 14 Dec 2019 A California-based nuclear energy technology company says it has chosen New Mexico's largest city as its home for a new engineering center to support the development of its reactor technology.

11. Uranium-contaminated site collapse in Detroit a wake-up call for the Great Lakes region: Toledo Blade (OH) 13 Dec 2019, Jim Provance 2

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With testing complete, Michigan environmental regulators are more confident that area drinking water was not affected by large chunks of limestone aggregate that fell Nov. 26 into the Detroit River from an industrial site near downtown Detroit that once handled radioactive uranium.

12. Which Industry Offers The Safest lobs In America: Nuclear Or Logging?: Forbes 13 Dec 2019, James Conca The most dangerous job in America is logging, with over 132 fatal injuries per 100,000 workers.

The next nine most dangerous jobs, with fatality rates between 10 and 100, are: commercial fishing, aircraft pilots, roofers, trash collectors, steel workers, truck drivers, farming, construction worker supervisors (yes, just the supervisors), and groundskeepers.

International Nuclear News

13. EU leaders include nuclear energy in green transition: The Associated Press 13 Dec 2019, Samuel Petrequin European Union leaders agreed Friday that nuclear energy will be part of the bloc's solution to making its economy carbon neutral by 2050, allowing them to win the support of two coal-dependent countries.

14. Nuclear power toxifies EU sustainable finance debate: Financial Times 16 Dec 2019, Mehreen Khan Agreeing international climate deals is harder than it looks. Despite rising public pressure for policymakers to grapple with the challenge, marathon talks at the UN's COP25 summit ended this weekend in failure.

15. TEPCO delays Fukushima chimney demolition: NHK World 15 Dec 2019 The operator of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant says it is having difficulties reducing the height of a damaged exhaust chimney and will extend the deadline to finish the work. The 120-meter tall exhaust stack shared by the No.1 and No.2 reactors was heavily contaminated by radioactive substances in the 2011 accident. Its steel framework was damaged by the accident.

16. Taiwan approves plans for a referendum to revive contested 4th nuclear plant:

Taiwan News 13 Dec 2019, Matthew Strong The Central Election Commission (CEC) on Friday (December 13) approved a proposal to hold a referendum on the revival of the contested fourth nuclear plant following four decades of controversy.

17. Albanese attacks Coalition's nuclear 'fantasy' as Greens say report should 'alarm all Australians': The Guardian 13 Dec 2019 The Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, has described the call from Coalition MPs to lift a longstanding ban on nuclear energy as "fantasy". A 230-page report released on Friday by the chairman of the parliament's energy committee and Liberal MP Ted O'Brien said nuclear energy should be considered as part of Australia's future energy mix.

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18. Small reactors could meet Saudi Arabia's energy needs, report says: Arab News 15 Dec 2019 Saudi Arabia is exploring ways to produce energy to achieve sustainable development and protect the global ecosystem. The Kingdom currently relies heavily on oil and natural gas to meet its electricity needs. According to official estimates, Saudi Arabia expects a 40 percent rise in local electricity demand between 2019 and 2030.

19. EDF to Invest 100 Million Euros to Boost Labour Training in Nuclear Industry:

Reuters 13 Dec 2019, Bate Felix EDF said on Friday it plans to invest 100 million euros (£85.91 million) in 2020-2021 to set up a training college and boost welding and other skills in the French nuclear sector in a bid to correct problems that have mired the industry.

Opinions

20. Letter to the NRC: Wicked Local Plymouth (MA) 13 Dec 2019, Henrietta Cosentino Recently the NRC has authorized the elimination of the offsite EPZ at Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station.

Now we learn that the NRC no longer requires Holtec to maintain the siren warning system. But we still have over 3,000 spent fuel rod assemblies in the fuel pool and 17 dry casks sitting right on the beach. Next year there will be five million tourists coming to celebrate the quadricentennial of America's Home Town. What could possibly be the rationale for allowing these most basic safety measures to be dismantled? On behalf of the Plymouth Area League of Women Voters, I would appreciate a response at your earliest convenience.

21. Legislature Must Consider HB 6: The Oberlin Review (OH) 13 Dec 2019, Scott Medwid I was involved in the multi-year campaign to keep the Lake Erie-based nuclear electric generators open and operating. The Ohio Public Utilities Commission reports that 15 percent of Ohio's total electrical generation volume comes from these facilities. This electricity is provided to customers 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> a day, seven days a week, regardless of the weather. The electricity is generated by the fission of uranium in nuclear reactors -

a process that is highly monitored, maintained, regulated, and inspected.

22. Breeder reactors can provide much safer nuclear energy: Providence Journal 13 Dec 2019, William F. Barry In response to E. Pierre Morenon's Dec. 8 letter ("Problem with disposing waste makes nuclear a poor choice"): There has been a technology around for five decades that obviates the need to dispose of spent fuel rods at fission plants. It is called a "breeder reactor" and it can generate more fissile material than it uses.

23. Readers Write: Green energy. budget surplus, population trends: Minneapolis Star Tribune 13 Dec 2019, Stephen Grittman A recent commentary from state Rep. Jeremy Munson induced several letter writers to object to his claim that green energy has unaccounted-for environmental costs, including the need for mining("

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'Green' energy relies on copper-nickel mining," Opinion Exchange, Dec. 12). The objecting letters included the idea that need promotes new technology and that we must accept "sacrifice" to avoid environmental degradation.

24. Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act hurts Utah: The Independent (UT) 15 Dec 2019, Steve Erickson On Dec. 11, organizations announced their opposition to House Resolution 2699, the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2019, and urged the Utah's federal delegation to vote against this bill.

These organizations include the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah, Citizens Education Project, Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment, Uranium Watch, the Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force, and the Utah Sierra Club.

25. Opinion: Germany's climate policy doesn't suit the EU: Deutsche Welle 13 Dec 2019, Christoph Hasselbach How can you obtain a unanimous decision from which one country is excepted? But this is exactly what the European Council has done. All 27 heads of state and government, including Poland (the British prime minister, Boris Johnson, was understandably absent), have agreed that the EU should be climate neutral by the year 2050. However, Poland has been granted a concession -

it can take a bit longer to get there. How long has not been stipulated.

26. Is 80 years just a number? Maybe for America's aging nuclear plants: Axios 16 Dec 2019, Amy Harder The presidential campaign trail isn't the only place where 80 years old is becoming more common.

Operators of up to 20% of America's nuclear reactors are seeking federal approval to run reactors for an unprecedented 80 years. The trend helps combat climate change -

but it's also raising serious safety concerns.

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NRC News

1. Tribe loses case against uranium mine: Rapid City Journal 13 Dec 2019, Seth Tupper The site of a potential uranium mine in southwest South Dakota will not have to be surveyed for cultural resources of concern to the Oglala Sioux Tribe if a decision issued Thursday by a panel of judges is upheld.

A lawyer for the tribe said it is evaluating the decision before deciding whether to file an appeal prior to a Jan. 6 deadline.

The three judges with the U.S. Atomic Safety and Licensing Board wrote in their decision that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission tried diligently to cooperate with the tribe to conduct an on-the-ground survey for Native American burials, artifacts and other historical and cultural resources.

The judges also wrote that the commission was justified in giving up when it became apparent the tribe would not cooperate.

But the company proposing the mine -

Powertech, a subsidiary of Azarga Uranium in Canada -

still has several more regulatory approvals to obtain before it can begin mining at the proposed site near Edgemont. Those approvals include licenses and permits from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which are under review, and from the South Dakota Department of Environment and Natural Resources, which has its review on hold until the federal agencies complete their work.

Mark Hollenbeck, an Edgemont-area rancher and project manager for Azarga, said the Oglala Sioux Tribe was carrying out a "death by delay" strategy against the mine. He said other Great Plains tribes with connections to the Black Hills conducted their own surveys at the proposed mine site in 2013, at the company's invitation and with its assistance. Hollenbeck said the company invited about 30 tribes, including the Oglala Sioux. Those who came to the site included the Northern Cheyenne, Santee Sioux, Crow Creek Sioux, Northern Arapaho, Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, and the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes of Oklahoma.

The proposed mine location is 13 miles northwest of Edgemont, near the abandoned community of Burdock and the hamlet of Dewey along the southwest edge of the Black Hills, in an area that was mined extensively for uranium from the 1950s to the 1970s.

Instead of open pits and tunnels, which were used to mine Edgemont-area uranium in the past, Powertech would use "in situ" mining, which is a Latin phrase meaning "in the original place." The company would drill wells across a 17-square-mile area to inject a water-based solution underground, dissolve the uranium, and draw it up to the surface for processing.

Members of local environmental groups protested the decision Friday on the corner of Fifth and Omaha streets in Rapid City. Lilias Jarding, of the Black Hills Clean Water Alliance and an organizer of the protest, said, "We think it is critical that people stand up to these mining companies and tell officials that water is our most precious resource."

The project has been a source of controversy since at least 2009, when Powertech applied for a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The commission issued the license in 2014 even though the lack of an adequate cultural resources survey in connection with the Oglala Sioux Tribe remained an unresolved contention at the time.

Since then, according to the NRC, efforts to negotiate a site-survey methodology with the tribe have been fruitless. The dispute is multifaceted and has included arguments about the appropriate contractor, the need for interviews with tribal elders, the cost and funding of the survey, the inclusion of additional tribes, and other factors.

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2. Group protests uranium decision: Rapid City Journal 13 Dec 2019, Nathan Thompson A handful of protestors braved cold temperatures Friday evening to display their opposition to the U.S. Atomic Safety and Licensing Board decision to not survey a Black Hills site for cultural resources of concern for the Oglala Sioux Tribe.

The group gathered Friday evening at the corner of Omaha and Fifth streets in Rapid City with lighted signs saying "water is life" and the Lakota translation of the same phrase, "mni wiconi."

A panel of three judges ruled Thursday the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission tried diligently to cooperate with the tribe to conduct the survey at a potential uranium mine near Edgemont.

Some Native American and environmental protestors said Friday the survey was not enough to protect the water and the sacred areas of the Black Hills.

Lilias Jarding of the Black Hills Clear Water Alliance said she was there to show support of the Oglala Sioux Tribe and to bring awareness to the importance of cultural resource protection.

3. Environmental, nuclear worries force Prairie Island tribe to seek new lands:

Minnesota Public Radio 13 Dec 2019, Jeffrey Jackson Schyler Martin's job calls for him to worry each day about things that could cripple or destroy the Prairie Island Indian Community, but that he can't control.

The nearby Xcel Energy nuclear power plant that towers over the reservation is high on that list, as is an Army Corps of Engineers lock and dam on the Mississippi River that regularly floods tracts of tribal land upstream.

Martin, the tribe's emergency management director, can rattle off a list of flooding headaches the tribe faces annually -

closing roads, building and maintaining berms, diverting water from Prairie Island's casino and outdoor amphitheater.

This year has been especially difficult with flooding lasting deep into the fall, closing roads to hunting grounds and damaging hay that feeds the tribe's buffalo herd. "The soil," said Martin, "is inundated with water."

Prairie Island leaders understand that the dam, the flooding and the nuclear plant will not be leaving anytime soon, which is why they're taking an extraordinary step -

expanding the reservation inland, away from their home on the Mississippi River.

Prairie Island last year bought 1,200 acres near Pine Island, Minn., about 35 miles south on U.S.

Highway 52. The tribe wants Congress to put the land into trust, adding it to the reservation. In return, the tribe would give up rights to sue the government over flooding caused by the lock-and-dam system.

While it's a logical step for a tribe that continues to grow and prosper, the relocation plan has reopened old wounds over the displacement of Native American people and white encroachment on Native lands. That includes environmental problems on tribal lands created by nonNative people.

Constant danger Prairie Island tribal members are descendants of the Mdewakanton Band of Eastern Dakota, who made their home in the southern half of Minnesota -

land they lost in 1851 as a result of the Treaty of Traverse des Sioux.

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After the U.S. government hanged 38 Dakota men in Mankato, Minn., in 1862, that treaty was invalidated and the Dakota were banished from the region.

"What's unique about the Prairie Island Dakota people is that they've got strong evidence that many never left this area," said Franky Jackson, the tribe's compliance officer for historic preservation.

He said a small group remained on land near Lake Pepin intended for people who have some Dakota ancestry. "Many found creative ways to retain and occupy land here around the island," he said.

Prairie Island tribal members slowly returned. And in 1934, the land on the banks of the Mississippi where tribal members live now was federally recognized as a 534-acre reservation.

Four years later, Jackson said, the community once again was thrown into upheaval when the Army Corps of Engineers built a lock-and-dam system just downstream to accommodate commercial navigation.

The structure flooded reservation land and shrank its footprint to 300 livable acres.

"You have a federal undertaking that is proposing to take more land and again displace Dakota people," said Jackson. "It's just another example of the encroachment the tribe was facing at that time."

It's a project that continues to trouble the reservation. The flooding has swamped traditions that help younger generations connect with their history. Floodwaters this year canceled a maple syrup harvesting event for kids.

"This is something that the children's ancestors have been doing for hundreds of years," Martin said.

But it's the threat of a nuclear disaster that keeps him up at night.

Martin said a routine Federal Emergency Management Agency exercise in 2018 opened his eyes to how a mishap at the nuclear power plant could upend the day-to-day operations of the Treasure Island Resort and Casino, the tribe's primary source of income for years.

"How do you relocate a reservation? These are federal trust lands. How do you relocate that?" he said. "And then how do you make up for the economic viability for the tribe? Obviously, nobody is going to want to come down to the casino."

In a statement, Xcel Energy said its facility in Prairie Island is considered very safe by third-party experts and that it works closely with the tribal community as a neighbor. The Army Corps of Engineers also said that they continue to work with the tribe to stabilize the land and improve water quality in the area.

The nuclear plant's towers rise about 600 yards away from where Lucy "Lu" Taylor played as a kid.

Back then, she didn't understand the potential dangers of living near the plant. As tribal vice president, she understands it well.

"Now, I'm an elder and I have grandchildren now, and it could be devastating to my grandchildren,"

she said. "It's not right for our kids to grow up here."

'A very powerful thing' The eye-opening worries that surfaced in the 2018 FEMA drill led Prairie Island to buy the Pine Island property, said Shelley Buck, the tribal council's president.

"Part of our culture is you're supposed to look out for the next seven generations. So, as tribal leaders, we have to do that. With every decision, we need to look out for that and have that in the 8

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back of our minds," said Buck, who also counts among Prairie Island's potential dangers a nearby rail line that regularly carries hazardous materials.

"Knowing all the things that we deal with, sometimes it gets pretty gloomy here," she said. "It gets pretty ominous. It's like something's over us."

The threats have kept the tribe from accommodating 120 tribal members on its housing waitlist and expanding for future generations, she said.

That's why the Pine Island land and its potential for housing and economic development is so important. Local officials in Pine Island, Rochester and Olmsted County all support Congress putting the land into trust -

a necessary step to make the Pine Island land part of the reservation and subject to tribal law.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers from Minnesota's delegation has introduced a bill that would put the Pine Island land into trust. So far, the bill has not been debated in Congress.

Buck emphasized the new land is not a replacement for the current reservation but a way for the tribe to grow. She said tribal members will always live along the Mississippi because it's sacred land.

"That's why we're not asking for replacement land. We're asking to be compensated for the land that was stolen from us here illegally," she said. "We are just wanting land to make up for that land that's sitting out there in the middle of the water now."

Tribal general counsel Jessie Seim said her research suggested the tribe had strong legal claims against the federal government for both the land lost due to flooding and for siting the nuclear power plant so close to the reservation.

Rather than pursue that, however, the tribe is ready to drop those legal claims to get the congressional approval needed to move forward on the Pine Island plan.

"We wanted to fashion a settlement, sovereign to sovereign," Seim said. "We wanted the governing bodies of both of these governments to come together and try to resolve the series of wrongs that have happened here at Prairie Island."

Prairie Island leaders hope that building houses at Pine Island will bring tribal members like Melody Whitebear back to the reservation.

Whitebear grew up in Kansas City, Mo., but visited relatives often at tribal lands by the Mississippi, and as an adult has come back on occasion to live with relatives on the reservation.

If she's able to move back permanently, Whitebear said she wants to be an emissary for other members who want to come home.

"I think it's just being a part of who I really am," she said. "In the crazy world that we're in, we need to have a support system. And there's no better support than to know that people you are related to are behind you. That's a very powerful thing."

4. Environmental report details potential plans to treat. truck radioactive SRS waste:

Aiken Standard (SC) 15 Dec 2019, Colin Demarest A trio of plans that could ultimately rid the Savannah River Site of thousands of gallons of radioactive waste years ahead of schedule would have little to no negative impact or effect on workers, the public and the surrounding air and environment, according to a recently published U.S. Department of Energy draft report.

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That's welcome news for both the plans and the overarching mission at the site: nuclear cleanup.

But it's not the final word.

The Energy Department on Dec. 17 will discuss the initial environmental review during a public forum at the Augusta Marriott. The federal government is also soliciting feedback; members of the public can review the plans and draft study online and are encouraged to submit written comments.

The public comment period is open through Jan. 9.

What's on the table?

The draft assessment, issued this month, examines environmental repercussions of three possible nuclear waste ventures. The Environmental Protection Agency, the state health department, and both Texas and Utah environmental quality agencies were consulted.

The first option under consideration involves retrieving 10,000 gallons of radioactive wastewater from the SRS tank farms, treating it at the site and trucking the final product to either Texas or Utah, where there are commercial disposal facilities.

It would necessitate nine total shipments, and more than two dozen people would be involved. The retrieval and treatment would be done in batches - and not necessarily back to back.

The second plan is somewhat similar, requiring the same sort of retrieval, batch work and manpower. The actual processing of the waste, though, would be done in Texas or Utah, where it would be ultimately kept.

Approximately 15 shipments would be needed for option two.

The third plan would require the most travel. The 10,000 gallons would be removed from the site's tank farms in batches. The batches would be shipped to a commercial treatment facility, likely in Washington state. Once treated, the processed waste would be sent off to Texas or Utah for long-term storage.

This option, similarly, would require about 15 trucked shipments from the treatment facility to the dump spot.

The U.S. Department of Transportation strictly regulates the shipment of waste. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, more commonly known as the NRC, plays a major part, as well.

From 2001 to 2010, the federal transportation department reported 75 transportation-related radioactive waste incidents. None resulted in radiation exposure, according to the Energy Department assessment.

Why now?

The three disposal plans - each requiring repeated cross-country travel, racking up thousands and thousands of miles - come in the wake of the Energy Department's decision earlier this year to reinterpret the term "high-level radioactive waste," material considered too dangerous to store anywhere but deep underground, far away from life.

For years, the Energy Department defined waste by its source or its provenance. Now, radioactivity

- what's in it, as DOE Under Secretary for Science Paul Dabbar put it - will be chief among the considerations.

Such a ruling brings the U.S. in line with international practice. It has also opened the door to the Savannah River Site wastewater study.

The wastewater in question is generated at the Defense Waste Processing Facility, a plant that encases nuclear sludge in glass logs. The wastewater is a byproduct of normal operations there, essentially.

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The DWPF wastewater is the first - and right now only - high-level waste the Energy Department is studying and debating treating like low-level waste. That process will be a long and rigorous one, energy officials have said. And commercial disposal hinges on the verdict.

Millions of gallons of nuclear waste are currently kept in aging, underground tanks at the Savannah River Site, the product of America's nuclear buildout during the Cold War. Officials have previously called the waste at SRS the state's most significant environmental threat.

Several national labs, including the Savannah River National Laboratory, support the new interpretation for classifying waste, according to a letter obtained earlier this year by the Aiken Standard.

"The national laboratories are supportive of a revised interpretation for high-level radioactive waste and willing to provide any resources to ensure successful implementation of the final policy,"

reads the March 25 dispatch, which includes the signature of SRNL Director Vahid Majidi.

Dabbar has said the letter influenced the DOE's decision.

5. Few people taking advantage of potassium iodide tablets: Chatham This Week (Canada) 13 Dec 2019, Tom Morrison About five per cent of Chatham-Kent addresses within the secondary zone of two American nuclear reactors have picked up their potassium iodide tablets, which was about as many as expected, according to the public health nurse leading the project.

Dan Drouillard from CK Public Health said as of Thursday morning he has given over 4,500 tablets to more than 200 addresses. Dec. 12 was the last day the health unit held distribution centres for the tablets in either Tilbury or Wheatley.

Some residents in those communities are within 80 kilometres - what is called the ingestion planning zone or secondary zone - of either Enrico Fermi 2 Nuclear Generating Plant in Monroe, Mich. or Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station in Oak Harbour, Ohio.

"When Windsor Essex (County Health Unit) launched last year, I don't even think they got 10 per cent of their addresses," said Drouillard. "We're running just over five per cent right now, which is kind of what I expected being even further away from the nuclear plants."

A spokesperson from the health unit in Essex County confirmed it has so far distributed the KI tablet kits to roughly six per cent of residents under its jurisdiction.

The pills - which are only to be taken following a nuclear accident - are being distributed based on new safety recommendations from federal nuclear experts and not because of a change in risk level, Drouillard said earlier this fall.

"For the most part, people have been appreciative and... l haven't gotten too much backlash, if you will," Drouillard said Thursday. "People seem to be understanding... that this is more of a precautionary thing and not an emergency or any change in what's been happening."

Drouillard said people seem to already know these power plants have been around for decades.

However, some have asked whether the age of these facilities could pose a problem.

"As soon as I reassure them that they're not (less safe) and that the Canadian Nuclear Safety Authority has enhanced their safety recommendations, then they understand that and they're more than happy to take the tablets (home) as a precaution," he said.

Amy Rudy, a Tilbury resident who picked up Kl tablets for her household Thursday morning, said she isn't concerned at this time.

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"I mean the way things are going nowadays, you never know, so it is a good safety precaution and better safe than sorry, so at least they're thinking of the people in the area," she said.

Rudy, who has three people living in her home, said she was already aware of these facilities before the health unit launched its campaign, but her family wasn't worried about them.

However, she said, "You're always aware of certain conditions that could happen."

Rudy said she appreciated how the health unit has rolled out information about this program.

"It's been in the news and the paper, keeping everybody up to date, so they've done a good job letting people know about it," she said.

Drouillard said he makes sure each household would have enough tablets based on the number of people living at the address. The smallest package available from the manufacturer contains 20 tablets, he said.

The packages come with a booklet designed by CK Public Health containing information about when and how to take the pills, emergency contact numbers and how to find instructions from government officials in the event of an accident.

Chatham-Kent has 4,696 addresses within 80 kilometres of a nuclear facility. A small number of those are cottages in Rondeau Provincial Park, which is within the radius of Perry Nuclear Power Plant on the other side of Lake Erie in North Perry, Ohio.

The Rondeau addresses were not included in these distribution centres.

Drouillard said he was meeting Thursday afternoon to discuss next steps, including how the tablets can be made available on an ongoing basis, which could start in January.

6. The Tiny, Simple Nuclear Reactor That Could Change Energy: Popular Mechanics 13 Dec 2019, Caroline Delbert An Oregon energy startup has a modular nuclear power reactor 1/l00th the size of a traditional reactor and is supposedly far safer.

The reactors can be installed in multiples to scale up or down to a location's power needs.

An energy startup in Oregon wants us to rethink our reluctance to embrace nuclear energy, Wired reports. NuScale Power studies new reactor technology from a lab on the Oregon State University campus-the same university where the 2019 climate crisis petition began. Their cutting-edge reactor is tiny and, its proponents insist, much safer than our existing notions of nuclear energy lead us to believe.

The oldest operating U.S. nuclear power reactor opened in 1969, and even the newest powered on in the mid-1990s. One completed in 2016, started construction back in 1973. "Only two new reactors are under construction in the U.S., but they're billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule," Wired reports.

Like our aging and increasingly dangerous infrastructure, these nuclear plants need to be comprehensively updated or replaced, and soon.

Even so, nuclear power accounts for two-thirds of the United States's total renewable power output, meaning any reactor that reaches end of life can significantly reduce our amount of renewable energy. NuScale's next generation nuclear reactor is tiny by comparison to today's operating reactors in the U.S. It's safe to install in clusters according to the power needs of a specific area, and because of its tiny size, these reactors are much easier to encase in safety devices and contain in the event of an emergency.

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There are regulatory differences, too. A demonstrably safer nuclear plant wouldn't need to be built ten miles or more outside of its service area. In fact, the existing regulatory process and paradigm is based on huge reactors that are all going to age out of the system soon. Once new technologies begin to receive approval, regulators can begin to convert or even shutdown existing plants and reduce the overall risk.

In the NuScale reactor, a core is kept cool by circulating normal fresh water, as happens in today's operating nuclear plants on a much, much larger scale. Inside huge nuclear towers, most of the space is dedicated to cooling. The NuScale reactor uses gravity and buoyancy to naturally circulate the cooling water. The size difference is staggering: "About the size of two school buses stacked end to end, you could fit around 100 of them in the containment chamber of a large conventional reactor," Wired reports. The reactor technology itself isn't completely different than before, it's just wildly more efficient and up to date.

The Byron plant generates 2,450 megawatt electrical (MWe) with two gigantic traditional towers.

The largest reactors in the world top out at about 8,000 MWe. Each NuScale reactor rates 60 MWe, which sounds small because the reactor is small by design. Plants can install dozens at a time.

Or, even better, our army of about 100 nuclear plants around the U.S. can be turned into 1,000 small plants that provide more local power with less distance to travel. The Byron plant supplies millions of people up to 100 miles away, which has been fine, but local power bleeds less energy in storage, transit, and other overhead energy costs.

The modular nuclear reactors have 12,000 pages of technical information wending its way through the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. In the meantime, they're promising a clean, plentiful, cutting-edge energy source they say is just as good as wind and solar without the pitfalls. Only time will tell.

7. The Next Nuclear Plants Will Be Small, Svelte, and Safer: Wired 13 Dec 2019, Daniel Oberhaus For the last 20 years, the future of nuclear power has stood in a high bay laboratory tucked away on the Oregon State University campus in the western part of the state. Operated by NuScale Power, an Oregon-based energy startup, this prototype reactor represents a new chapter in the conflict-ridden, politically bedeviled saga of nuclear power plants.

NuScale's reactor won't need massive cooling towers or sprawling emergency zones. It can be built in a factory and shipped to any location, no matter how remote. Extensive simulations suggest it can handle almost any emergency without a meltdown. One reason is that it barely uses any nuclear fuel, at least compared with existing reactors. It's also a fraction of the size of its predecessors.

This is good news for a planet in the grips of a climate crisis. Nuclear energy gets a bad rap in some environmentalist circles, but many energy experts and policymakers agree that splitting atoms is going to be an indispensable part of decarbonizing the world's electricity. In the US, nuclear power accounts for about two-thirds of all clean electricity, but the existing reactors are rapidly approaching the end of their regulatory lifetimes. Only two new reactors are under construction in the US, but they're billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule.

Enter the small modular reactor, designed to allow several reactors to be combined into one unit.

Need a modest amount of energy? Install just a few modules. Want to fuel a sprawling city? Tack on several more. Coming up with a suitable power plant for a wide range of situations becomes that much easier. Because they are small, these reactors can be mass-produced and shipped to any location in a handful of pieces. Perhaps most importantly, small modular reactors can take advantage of several cooling and safety mechanisms unavailable to their big brothers, which all but guarantees they won't become the next Chernobyl.

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NuScale uses a light water reactor-by far the most common type ofreactor in commercial nuclear power plants-but that's about where the similarities end. NuScale's reactor is 65 feet tall and 9 feet in diameter, and is housed in a containment vessel only slightly larger. About the size of two school buses stacked end to end, you could fit around 100 of them in the containment chamber of a large conventional reactor. Yet this small reactor can crank out 60 megawatts of energy, which is about one-tenth the smallest operational reactor in the US today.

Going small has big benefits, says Jose Reyes, NuScale's cofounder and chief technical officer.

They're safer, in part because they are small enough to sit in underground pools of water. If a reactor leaks, the heat can slowly diffuse into the pool. That also means the reactors could be built closer to the places where their power is needed, without the 10-mile safety buffer a conventional plant must have.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been reviewing NuScale's design since 2016; if the commission gives its blessing, the company can finally start building the first commercial reactor of its kind. The review process is brutal-NuScale submitted a 12,000 page technical application-and will likely stretch on for at least another year. But the company has already secured permission to build its first 12-reactor plant at the Idaho National Laboratory, which may start supplying power to communities in Western states as soon as 2026.

Small modular reactors may be the first tiny nuclear plants to make it on the US grid, but they won't be the last. The Department of Energy is also interested in microreactors, a "plug and play" nuclear plant that usually generates less than 50 megawatts of power. Whereas small modular reactors are better suited to industrial processes and other large power loads, microreactors are ideal for smaller needs like powering a remote military base or keeping the lights on in an isolated Alaskan community. But in the future they could also serve as an "always on" source of carbon-free energy in cities.

Related News

8. Amid federal probe, Illinois lawmakers back bill to repeal ComEd subsidies: The Center Square (IL) 13 Dec 2019, Cole Lauterbach With support from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, an Illinois state lawmaker has filed legislation to repeal much of the Future Energy Jobs Act, including provisions that would strip the state's largest utility of a ratepayer subsidy as federal investigators probe the company's lobbying practices.

The Future Energy Jobs Act was one of the few major legislative accomplishments of the gridlock-mired 100th General Assembly.

At the time, nuclear energy provider Exelon, the parent of Commonwealth Edison, said the fate of two of its power plants hung in the balance. If lawmakers didn't approve the bill, the plants would close.

Supporters said Senate Bill 2814 was a hallmark accomplishment for green energy initiatives, while critics called it a ratepayer-funded bailout of the two nuclear power plants owned by Exelon.

Lawmakers sent it to Gov. Bruce Rauner's desk in bipartisan fashion while on the same day trading barbs about each other's recalcitrance over a protracted budget battle.

"I couldn't understand why so much of the energy in the Capitol during veto session was spent on bailing out a profitable billion-dollar company as opposed to dealing with the crisis we were having 14 https://nrc.barbaricumanalytics.com/Home/Daily

at the state level," said state Rep. Mark Batinick, a Republican from Plainfield who filed legislation that would undo part of the Future Energy Jobs Act.

Amid a federal investigation of ComEd's lobbying practices, House Bill 3987, by Batinick's description, is intended to eliminate the bailout, but preserve the green energy subsidies accounted for in the initial legislation.

"The Com Ed bailout bill is part of the FBI investigation and this is really a problem," he said.

"Reviewing these subsidies with new legislation is the best path forward to right this wrong."

ComEd defended the legislation.

"The Future Energy Jobs Act was a bipartisan, comprehensive environmental policy that corrected known market flaws by placing a value on clean and renewable energy, including nuclear, and creating new renewable and energy efficiency programs that will save customers $7 billion by 2030," Media Relations Manager Elizabeth Keating said. "The Zero Emission Standard element of FEJA succeeded in preventing 20.2 million metric tons of carbon emissions, preserving 4,200 jobs and $1.2 billion in economic activity, and avoiding up to $250 million annually in rate increases for customers that would have resulted from nuclear plant closures. However, there is still work to be done to ensure Illinois remains on track to meet its goal of achieving 100 percent clean energy by 2030."

State Rep. Kelly Cassidy, a Chicago Democrat who also opposed the Future Energy Jobs Act in 2016, is co-sponsor of Batinick's bill.

"As an active proponent of clean energy legislation, I was disappointed to see a bailout for a profitable corporation linked to otherwise good policy," she said in a statement. "With recent revelations about the ongoing investigations, I hope that more of our colleagues agree that this flawed law deserves another look."

In addition to revisiting the Future Energy Jobs Act, Batinick said ComEd needs to send representatives to Springfield to testify before a committee about the process in which the company successfully lobbied to pass the bill.

As of Thursday evening, House Bill 3987 had gained four more cosponsors from both sides of the aisle.

9. Los Alamos weapons leader confident in plutonium pit outlook: Aiken Standard

.cru 13 Dec 2019, Colin Demarest Should the cards fall favorably, Los Alamos National Laboratory will undoubtedly uphold its end of the plutonium pit production equation, the deputy director for weapons there said Thursday.

Those cards, though, include two very important, and often mercurial, factors: money and people.

The former is at the whim of Congress. The latter is not.

"We're going to have assigned 30 pits per year by 2026," Bob Webster, the deputy director, said at the half-day Nuclear Modernization Seminar. "And we're going to get there if the funding shows up, and we install the machines, and we train the people, we bring on the workforce that does all the support work."

Plutonium pits are nuclear weapon cores - they're often referred to as triggers.

For years the U.S. has lacked the ability to produce, in bulk, usable plutonium pits. And that's a problem, energy and defense officials believe, as the nation's nuclear stockpile ages.

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In 2018, the Defense Department and the National Nuclear Security Administration recommended essentially resurrecting pit production and making South Carolina - the Savannah River Site - and New Mexico its home.

By 2030, at least 50 pits per year would be made just south of Aiken, they recommended. Another 30 per year would be made at Los Alamos National Laboratory, an installation recognized for plutonium excellence.

What's being asked of Los Alamos in the coming years is "not that different than what we did in the past," Webster said Thursday.

"Like for pits, it's not like we've never built a pit," he continued. "We actually built a pit last year that, had we wanted to, it could have been used.... So, we're not that far away."

While the deputy director was confident in his stake, he did express an overarching concern: the magnitude of it all.

The Congressional Budget Office in January roughly estimated pit production to cost about $9 billion over the next decade. Pit production, as suggested, would involve reworking the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility at the Savannah River Site (the multibillion-dollar project was canceled late last year) as well as beefing up Los Alamos.

Fully satisfying the energy and defense departments' fiscal year 2019 nuclear-related requests would cost hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade, according to the same CBO analysis.

The fiscal year 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, which passed the House this week, reinforces the call for 80 pits per year.

The National Nuclear Security Administration, established in 2000, is the Energy Department's semiautonomous weapons-and-nonproliferation arm.

The Rocky Flats Plant in Colorado was the last place the federal government produced the nuclear weapon cores en masse.

10. Nuclear tech company to locate research center in New Mexico: The Associated Press 14 Dec 2019 A California-based nuclear energy technology company says it has chosen New Mexico's largest city as its home for a new engineering center to support the development of its reactor technology.

Kairos Power LLC plans to take up residence at a master planned community on the southern edge of Albuquerque. It has plans to buy an existing building with room for future expansion.

State economic development officials said Friday the company will invest up to $125 million on the campus and create more than 65 high-paying jobs over the next few years.

Officials said Kairos' operations in New Mexico will be focused on engineering and testing ofhigh-temperature salt technology and no nuclear material will be on site.

According to an analysis done by the state, the project would generate an estimated total economic impact of up to $292 million over 10 years. The company plans to hire engineers, technicians, mechanics, machinists and welders in addition to non-technical positions.

The New Mexico Economic Development Department has committed $4 million in state funds for the project. The city of Albuquerque Economic Development Department has committed $1 million through its local economic development fund.

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Kairos Power has applied for an industrial revenue bond that will result in an investment up to

$125 million in building and land acquisition, new construction and equipment purchases by 2025.

All incentives are pending approval by the Albuquerque City Council.

11. Uranium-contaminated site collapse in Detroit a wake-up call for the Great Lakes region: Toledo Blade (OH) 13 Dec 2019, Jim Provance With testing complete, Michigan environmental regulators are more confident that area drinking water was not affected by large chunks oflimestone aggregate that fell Nov. 26 into the Detroit River from an industrial site near downtown Detroit that once handled radioactive uranium.

But the incident has become a wake-up call to many people across the Great Lakes region as record and near-record water levels threaten to scour shorelines and cause more erosion -

especially in areas with soupy mixtures of legacy contaminants from decades ago.

The event also has some people talking again about a controversial proposal to let Canadian utility Ontario Power Generation construct someday a deep underground repository a mile from Lake Huron's east shore to indefinitely hold its low-level and intermediate-level nuclear wastes.

And just days ago, Canadian federal officials winnowed its list of potential sites for a different repository -

one that would store all of that nation's highly radioactive, spent nuclear reactor fuel to three locations. The final decision on a site is to be made by 2023. The host community stands to get $20 billion in investments. That project is being pursued by Canada's Nuclear Waste Management Organization.

Two are along Lake Huron's Bruce Peninsula, not far from OPG's proposed site for its radioactive wastes. The other is in northwest Ontario near the 1,200-resident township of Ignace, about a three-hour drive northwest of Thunder Bay on Lake Superior. U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell (D.,

Dearborn) was one of four Michigan congressmen who last week urged Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to kill that project.

The Nov. 26 spill occurred on land known as Detroit Dock and leased by Detroit Bulk Storage at 5851 West Jefferson Ave. in southwest Detroit. The Detroit Dock site was formerly used by Revere Copper and Brass, a company that in the 1940s had a role in making the world's first atomic bomb.

Revere continued to roll or construct uranium rods into the 1950s before closing in 1984. It was torn down in 1989.

Allison Lippert, a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency spokesman in Chicago, said several radiation tests have been performed there since the 1980s, all of which came back at or below background levels.

"More recent testing conducted earlier this year by EPA's Great Lakes National Program Office and Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy did not detect radiation above background in sediment offshore of the site," she said.

Nonetheless, more concerns were raised after the recent collapse, with some people wondering what might happen if contaminants fouled Detroit's water system or migrated down the Detroit River to western Lake Erie, from which Toledo, Oregon, and other Ohio communities draw tap water.

That scenario was never played out. Samples drawn by Michigan EGLE staff from three locations -

2,540 feet upstream, directly in front of the spill site, and 1,040 feet downstream -

showed no sign of industrial pollutants. Suspended solids and barium were detected, but at levels well below water-quality standards, according to a statement issued Wednesday.

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On Dec. 6, EGLE staff took radiological readings at more than 1,000 locations on the Detroit Bulk Storage site. All were found to be at or below background levels.

"There's no indication the limestone had any radiation in it," said Nick Assendelft, a Michigan EGLE spokesman.

The Great Lakes Water Authority, which serves Detroit and many other parts of southeast Michigan, has two water intakes in the Detroit River: one several miles upstream of Detroit Storage, the other several miles downstream. But the water authority said its downstream intake is on the river's Canadian side, to which no water flows directly from the collapse site.

"Because of this, GLWA does not believe that there is any danger of this incident impacting water quality," the authority said, adding that it is having independent, third-party laboratory tests run for radionuclides, anyway.

"This same testing was conducted in 2014, and no issues were identified," it said.

Michigan EGLE's staff agrees, though, that the Nov. 26 incident could be a symptom of a larger problem in this era of climate change, which is blamed for record and near-record Great Lakes water levels.

Mr. Assendelft said the state agency plans to take a deeper look at what's stored along Michigan's Great Lakes shorelines, in hopes of heading off similar problems elsewhere.

"It is certainly something we think might have been a factor," he said of the high water levels. 'That could very well have been a factor in terms of unseen scouring underneath. I think that is something we'll be talking about."

Along the same lines, public officials throughout Michigan and Ohio have decried plans to bury any form of nuclear waste near the Great Lakes' Canadian shores for several years. Previous letters of opposition have included signatures from as many as 32 Great Lakes congressmen.

OPG's project is the furthest along. The utility wants to build the DGR a mile from Lake Huron on its massive eight-reactor Bruce nuclear complex in tiny Kincardine, Ont., about a four-hour drive north of Toledo.

The project, which has an estimated $1 billion price tag, has had at least 184 resolutions submitted against it by municipalities, including Toledo, Oregon, and Port Clinton. It also has been opposed by groups claiming to represent more than 22 million U.S. and Canadian citizens.

Other opponents include the cities of Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, Rochester, N.Y., and the Washington-based National Association of Counties and the Great Lakes Legislative Caucus.

OPG maintains the project can be done safely, with waste sent down a shaft that will be nearly a half-mile deep into hard rock that geologists believe hasn't shifted for 450 million years.

Fred Kuntz, an OPG spokesman, told The Blade that project -

in the making since 2005 -

is headed for a crucial vote Jan. 31 by the local Saugeen Ojibway Nation, known as SON. OPG announced in 2013 it will not build it without support from SON, which also represents Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation.

Plans for building a DGR had been progressing under past administrations, but were put on hold by the Trudeau administration. If the project gets a favorable vote from SON, it will undergo at least two more years of public hearings and five to seven years of engineering and construction, likely putting the opening date for that waste facility into the early 2030s, he said.

The company doesn't want people to think it is encroaching upon Lake Huron just because its DGR would be built a mile from that lake's shoreline.

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"It is not near the lake. It is removed from the lake by 400 million years of geology," Mr. Kuntz said.

"It's impermeable. It's been isolated from surface water for eons. It's ideal because it gets it away from the water."

He conceded, though, there will "always be a perception problem."

Mr. Kuntz also said the public should know that containing nuclear waste near a shoreline does not carry the same risks as legacy pollution sites scoured from beneath by high water levels and crumbling into waterways.

"Nuclear waste is all bar-coded. It's all contained," he said.

12. Which Industry Offers The Safest Jobs In America: Nuclear Or Logging?: Forbes 13 Dec 2019, James Conca The most dangerous job in America is logging, with over 132 fatal injuries per 100,000 workers.

The next nine most dangerous jobs, with fatality rates between 10 and 100, are: commercial fishing, aircraft pilots, roofers, trash collectors, steel workers, truck drivers, farming, construction worker supervisors (yes, just the supervisors), and groundskeepers.

The safest job in America is in the commercial nuclear industry, with less than 1 fatal injury per 100,000 workers - in fact, it is near zero. One has to go back and integrate 10 years to get to 1 fatal injury per million worker-equivalents. Nuclear is also one of the best paying of any job sector.

Other lists of safest jobs never include nuclear, probably because of inherent bias and ignorance, or maybe because most just lump nuclear with other energy jobs like natural gas, which is completely wrong. Nuclear is a thousand times safer than any fossil fuel, and is a hundred times safer than even wind and solar.

The other safe jobs include accountant, actuary, computer systems analysts, dietitian, interpreter, mathematician, medical records tech, paralegal, statistician, and web developer, all of them about 10 times more dangerous than nuclear.

Even when looking at non-lethal injuries (see figure below), like falling off a ladder, nuclear is still the safest job around, safer than sitting at a desk trading stocks, safer than being a realtor, safer than any job anyone reading this post has ever held. And that level of safety has cost more, but it's worth it.

Because of the sturm und drang of the cold war, great pressure was placed on the Nuclear Regulatory Agency, the EPA, the DOE and their predecessors to do their jobs better, making nuclear the safest, cleanest, most efficient energy source known to humans.

This result, more than is generally realized, achieved with nuclear in environmental and health safety what no one has achieved with fossil fuel, or even with renewables: near-perfect safety records. These points should not be lost in discussions on energy sustainability.

Of course, it's key that measuring radiation is easy, and protecting against radiation is even easier.

But when the job has been done this well, it needs to be acknowledged. Ranting that nuclear needs to be safer is nonsense. Safer than the safest is a bizarre goal to have. And the other energy sources need to be held to as high a safety and environmental standard as nuclear.

So it's actually good that nuclear power is increasing in the world - yes, rumors of its demise have been greatly exaggerated.

According to the World Economic Forum, 8 years after the Fukushima Daiichi disaster, global nuclear power generation is experiencing a rebound to pre-Fukushima levels and meeting almost 10% of the increased demand for electricity worldwide.

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Last year, nuclear power production worldwide increased by 3.3%, with more than 50 nuclear reactors currently under construction. Fifteen of them are in China, whose goal is to have 58 GW by 2020 as part of its efforts to reduce air pollution from coal-fired plants. Japan is slow to restart its nuclear fleet, but about 30 reactors should finally come back online in the next ten years.

So, if you're looking for a great job that pays well, and is safer than any desk job, nuclear is the top choice.

International Nuclear News

13. EU leaders include nuclear energy in green transition: The Associated Press 13 Dec 2019, Samuel Petrequin European Union leaders agreed Friday that nuclear energy will be part of the bloc's solution to making its economy carbon neutral by 2050, allowing them to win the support of two coal-dependent countries.

EU heads of state and government agreed that nuclear energy will be recognized as a way to fight climate change as part of a deal that endorsed the climate target. While Poland did not immediately agree to the plan, the concessions on nuclear energy were enough for the Czech Republic and Hungary to give their approval.

The two nations had the support of France, which relies on nuclear power for 60% of its electricity.

They managed to break the resistance of skeptical countries, including Luxembourg, Austria and Germany to get a clear reference to nuclear power in the meeting's conclusions.

"Nuclear energy is clean energy," Czech Prime minister Andrej Babis said. "I don't know why people have a problem with this."

Slovak Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini insisted the EU would be unable to reach its climate targets without nuclear power plants.

Poland, one of the bloc's biggest emitters that relies heavily on coal for its electricity production, was the sole holdout on the deal set out by new EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen in her "European Green Deal" program.

In its final memorandum, the European Council "acknowledged the need to ensure energy security and to respect the right of the member states to decide on their energy mix and to choose the most appropriate technologies. Some member states have indicated that they use nuclear energy as part of their national energy mix."

That line reassured countries expected to suffer the most during the transition that future nuclear power projects would be eligible for the billions in euros that will be made available as part of von der Leyen's plan.

"This explicit nuclear mention was required by the Czech Republic and Poland," French President Emmanuel Macron said. "I did not need it. But it is true that one can't ask countries whose domestic production relies for 60 or 70% on coal to switch to all renewable overnight."

Macron insisted the use of nuclear energy is essential to make sure EU members don't become dependent to natural gas or electricity imports.

"We would expose ourselves to possible cut in supplies and would also increase spending on energies coming from third parties," he said.

A low-carbon alternative to fossil fuels, nuclear energy is part of the energy mix of 14 of the 28 member states, representing some 30% of the electricity produced in the EU. Some scientists argue 20 https://nrc.barbaricumanalytics.com/Home/Daily

that over the past half century, nuclear power stations have avoided the emission of an estimated 60 billion tons of carbon dioxide by offsetting fossil fuel combustion.

Some environmentalists expressed concern about the possibility of a recurrence of accidents like those at Chernobyl and Fukushima. They have urged the EU to instead embrace renewable energies including wind and solar power.

Ska Keller, the president of the Greens in the European Parliament, told The Associated Press that "nuclear energy is still totally unsafe. It's still very energy costing, all the extraction of the uranium, and we still have no idea of what to do with the waste. It has nothing to do with renewable energy, nothing to do with the solution, it's the absolute wrong direction."

In recent weeks, EU countries have also split over a green finance law called taxonomy aimed at channeling money into clean and sustainable investment while avoiding greenwashing. The main sticking point in their discussions has been whether financial products involving nuclear could be labelled as green.

14. Nuclear power toxifies EU sustainable finance debate: Financial Times 16 Dec 2019, Mehreen Khan Agreeing international climate deals is harder than it looks. Despite rising public pressure for policymakers to grapple with the challenge, marathon talks at the UN's COP25 summit ended this weekend in failure.

In what was the world's longest ever climate negotiation (14 consecutive days), international delegates in Madrid failed to agree rules for how rich and poorer countries should construct a new global carbon trading market. The FT's Leslie Hook dissects how the summit came to an inconclusive end and why the EU and environmental NGOs are lamenting the outcome.

The EU, which was part of the negotiations in Madrid, will be discouraged by the rancour over carbon trading permits -

especially as Brussels is drawing up contentious plans to force third countries to pay a price for carbon it exports to the bloc.

Away from the UN talks, EU governments will have to face down their own green divisions on Monday when they meet to discuss much-anticipated market rules on sustainable finance products.

Despite hopes for a deal before the end of the year, France and eastern European capitals last week demanded the rules make explicit to investors that nuclear energy is part of the EU's journey towards carbon neutrality.

EU28 ambassadors meet on Monday morning to see if they can come up with a compromise that can keep all sides happy. Austria and Luxembourg have led the charge against giving a green-stamp to nuclear, with Germany also resisting over concerns about the environmental impact of nuclear waste.

While the EU has championed itself as a global leader in climate policy, Brussels has yet to prove whether it can "walk the talk" on green policy. The debate over the classification system (known as the "taxonomy") is the new European Commission's first real test.

Energy policy is a fiercely protected part of governments' national powers. Divisions were laid bare in a tense leaders' summit last week where member states ultimately failed to convince Poland to sign up to the bloc's 2050 net zero carbon target But in a triumph for France and its eastern allies, the summit conclusions gave an explicit nod to nuclear as "part of the energy mix" in some countries.

Diplomats think the summit agreement on nuclear should pave the way for pro-nuclear countries to win the argument over the taxonomy. Even if they do, another battle with MEPs lies ahead. Should 21 https://nrc.barbaricumanalytics.com/Home/Daily

ambassadors get a compromise on Monday, it still has to be agreed by the European Parliament, which has insisted on its "no" to nuclear.

Pascal Canfin, head of the EP's environment committee and member of Emmanuel Macron's En Marche, also held firm on the issue. He told the Brussels Briefing that EU governments should not "modify the balanced political compromise" agreed with MEPs earlier this month.

"All parties know that it is the only deal that could have been reached. That's why I'm confident we will get a formal endorsement this week," said Mr Canfin.

15. TEPCO delays Fukushima chimney demolition: NHK World 15 Dec 2019 The operator of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant says it is having difficulties reducing the height of a damaged exhaust chimney and will extend the deadline to finish the work.

The 120-meter tall exhaust stack shared by the No.land No.2 reactors was heavily contaminated by radioactive substances in the 2011 accident. Its steel framework was damaged by the accident.

Tokyo Electric Power Company has been working since August to halve the chimney's height to around 60 meters to reduce the risk of collapse, but has so far only cut about nine meters.

The company says a cutter developed for the project has run into a series of problems. It says the blade of the remotely-controlled device has worn down faster than expected and become stuck.

TEPCO has suspended the demolition, and is reviewing its cutting methods and procedures. The utility says it will submit an improved plan to the Nuclear Regulation Authority.

The firm says it hopes to restart the work by the end of this month and will reschedule completion of the project from the end of March next year to mid-May.

16. Taiwan approves plans for a referendum to revive contested 4th nuclear plant:

Taiwan News 13 Dec 2019, Matthew Strong The Central Election Commission (CEC) on Friday (December 13) approved a proposal to hold a referendum on the revival of the contested fourth nuclear plant following four decades of controversy.

The government stopped the project in the New Taipei City district of Gongliao on the island's north coast in 2000, only to resume its construction one year later. Following a round of massive protests in 2014, inspired by the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan, plans to complete the power station were finally abandoned.

Last year, state utility Taiwan Power Corporation started shipping unused fuel rods back to the United States, marking a further step toward an end for the project.

However, a group of supporters saying the dangers of nuclear energy have been misrepresented started a petition action for a nationwide referendum on the issue.

They handed 375,417 signatures to the CEC in October. On Friday, the election body announced the valid number of endorsements amounted to 307,903, exceeding the required legal minimum of more than 280,000, the Liberty Times reported.

As a result, plans for a referendum can move forward, though no specific date has been mentioned yet. The organization of 10 referendums on the same day as the nine-in-one local and regional elections in November 2018 caused problems at voting booths, leading to calls for separating referendums from elections.

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August 28, 2021 has been named as the earliest possible date the vote might be held, according to the Central News Agency.

Nuclear energy has proven unpopular due to the threat of earthquakes and other natural disasters, as well as the need for space to store nuclear waste. The current administration of President Tsai Ing-wen (~~X ) wants Taiwan to become a nuclear-free homeland in 2025.

17. Albanese attacks Coalition's nuclear 'fantasy' as Greens say report should 'alarm all Australians': The Guardian 13 Dec 2019 The Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, has described the call from Coalition MPs to lift a longstanding ban on nuclear energy as "fantasy".

A 230-page report released on Friday by the chairman of the parliament's energy committee and Liberal MP Ted O'Brien said nuclear energy should be considered as part of Australia's future energy mix.

The government-dominated committee called for further work on nuclear technology and the partial lifting of the current moratorium on nuclear energy to allow for "new and emerging nuclear technologies".

O'Brien said nuclear energy would also complement the government's climate policy.

"If we're serious about reducing greenhouse gas emissions, we can't simply ignore this zero-emissions base-load technology," he said.

A dissenting report by Labor MPs said there was no economic case for pursuing nuclear energy and safety issues had not been addressed.

"Nuclear power has never overcome the dangers that we have seen played out around the world time after time," Albanese told reporters on Friday after finishing off his week-long trip to Queensland.

"This is a fantasy from the government in order to avoid the real decisions that are needed of having a national energy policy that drives down emissions, drives down prices, and creates jobs."

The inquiry, sought by the energy minister, Angus Taylor, received more than 300 submissions.

The Greens' nuclear power spokesman, Sarah Hanson-Young, said the committee's report should "alarm all Australians".

She said the report opens the door to nuclear power stations and subsequent waste dumps here in Australia.

"This is absurd at best and dangerous at worst," she said in a statement.

18. Small reactors could meet Saudi Arabia's energy needs, report says: Arab News 15 Dec 2019 Saudi Arabia is exploring ways to produce energy to achieve sustainable development and protect the global ecosystem.

The Kingdom currently relies heavily on oil and natural gas to meet its electricity needs. According to official estimates, Saudi Arabia expects a 40 percent rise in local electricity demand between 2019 and 2030.

This expected rise in electricity use is due to the rapid growth of urban areas and the Kingdom's plans to develop a strong manufacturing sector and expand its industrial base as envisioned in Vision 2030.

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Such a scenario calls for exploration of alternative methods of electricity generation such as nuclear energy, solar and wind power.

Nuclear power provides 11 percent of the world's electricity, with 454 nuclear reactors operating in 30 countries and 54 plants under construction -

including 11 in China, seven in India, and six in Russia.

The Saudi government announced its nuclear national policy in 2018. It plans for as many as 16 nuclear plants over the next 25 years at a cost of more than $80 billion. The Kingdom plans to meet 15 percent of its growing energy needs from nuclear power by 2032.

The government has also set ambitious goals for renewable energy, such as achieving 27.3 gigawatts of solar and wind power by 2024.

Nuclear energy is not only clean but available around the clock. Renewables such as solar and wind are good energy sources but are dependent on weather conditions, which are not always stable.

The King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center (KAPSARC) recently published a study calling for the use of small modular reactors (SMRs) in the Kingdom to achieve its Vision 2030 goals.

SMRs are a type of nuclear fission reactor that are smaller than conventional reactors. They are manufactured at a plant and brought to a site to be assembled. These reactors allow for less on-site construction, increased containment efficiency and security of nuclear materials.

"The average capacity of nuclear reactors has grown from 50 megawatts electric (MWe) in the 1950s to around 1.65 gigawatts electric (GWe) today," according to the study.

The study said the deployment of SMRs in the Kingdom would allow it to use its oil reserves better and meet its increasing domestic energy demand. It would also enable the development of human capita! through knowledge transfer and the growth of public and private sector investments through the development of the SMR value chain.

The localization of SMR technology in Saudi Arabia would also offer great economic and developmental benefits toward the realization of Saudi Vision 2030's targets and goals.

Since the 1950s, nuclear generation technology has transformed and developed. After the three major nuclear accidents -

at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima -

nuclear power has become more robust, safer and more secure.

According to KAPSARC, the design of SM Rs requires lower initial investment and shorter simplified design construction times compared with large modular reactors (3 years as opposed to 7-10 years), as the unit can be expanded at any time (buying one module and adding others later).

Additionally, the operation of SM Rs requires less capital compared with large reactors (LRs ). The paper shows that the cost of SM Rs is less than that required to fund LRs, which would help to build investor confidence and allow for investment. Additionally, the safety of SM Rs is greater than that of LRs.

19. EDF to Invest 100 Million Euros to Boost Labour Training in Nuclear Industry:

Reuters 13 Dec 2019, Bate Felix EDF said on Friday it plans to invest 100 million euros (£85.91 million) in 2020-2021 to set up a training college and boost welding and other skills in the French nuclear sector in a bid to correct problems that have mired the industry.

The action plan, known as Excell, was demanded by the French government in October to tackle skills shortages and other shortcomings that have damaged the industry's reputation and led to 24 https://nrc.barbaricumanalytics.com/Home/Daily

over a decade of delay and major cost overruns on the construction of the new-generation Flamanville 3 EPR nuclear reactor.

EDF did not say where it would open the college or give other details of its planned training schemes.

ED F's plan, and the completion of the Flamanville project is a prerequisite for a French government decision on new nuclear projects in France.

"The Excell plan must create the conditions to regain confidence in the French nuclear sector," EDF Chief Executive Jean-Bernard Levy told a news conference, adding that the nuclear sector has not been able to maintain the same industry standards as other sectors such as the aeronautic sector.

Opinions

20. Letter to the NRC: Wicked Local Plymouth (MA) 13 Dec 2019, Henrietta Cosentino The following letter was sent to the NRC.

Recently the NRC has authorized the elimination of the offsite EPZ at Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station.

Now we learn that the NRC no longer requires Holtec to maintain the siren warning system. But we still have over 3,000 spent fuel rod assemblies in the fuel pool and 17 dry casks sitting right on the beach. Next year there will be five million tourists coming to celebrate the quadricentennial of America's Home Town. What could possibly be the rationale for allowing these most basic safety measures to be dismantled? On behalf of the Plymouth Area League of Women Voters, 1 would appreciate a response at your earliest convenience.

Henrietta Cosentino, chair, Plymouth Area Nuclear Affairs Committee

21. Leeislature Must Consider HB 6: The Oberlin Review (OH) 13 Dec 2019, Scott Medwid I am writing in response to last week's article "House Bill 6 Poses Serious Environmental, Health Risks" (The Oberlin Review, Dec. 6, 2019).

I was involved in the multi-year campaign to keep the Lake Erie-based nuclear electric generators open and operating. The Ohio Public Utilities Commission reports that 15 percent of Ohio's total electrical generation volume comes from these facilities. This electricity is provided to customers 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> a day, seven days a week, regardless of the weather. The electricity is generated by the fission of uranium in nuclear reactors -

a process that is highly monitored, maintained, regulated, and inspected.

The Ohio PUC reports that 11 million tons of carbon, 18,000 tons of sulfur dioxide and 12,000 tons of nitrous oxides emissions have been avoided since the plants began operation in the late '70s and the mid-1980s. This is because they displaced fossil fuel combustion electrical generation. Davis Besse has been re-licensed to operate up to the year 2037 and Perry Nuclear Generating Station could be re-licensed after 2025 for another 20 years up-to 2045. Both facilities account for all of the partially fissioned uranium fuel rods in Ohio.

Nowadays, the current fleet of nuclear reactors -

99 in total -

produces 20 percent of the United States total electrical generation. Most of the fleet was originally constructed three to four decades ago. However, the original builders would recognize very little of the operation subsystems. The fleet on average provides electricity 92 percent of the year between fueling and maintenance outages. They are also some of the most injury-free industrial workplaces for the engineers and union trade people. Both facilities, east and west of Cleveland, are the cornerstones of their local 25 https://nrc.barbaricumanalytics.com/Home/Daily

county's economy. Davis Besse NPP occupies 947 acres, most of which is a nature preserve and 1,100 acres at Perry, most of which is also a nature preserve.

Some Ohioans have said that FirstEnergy Corp really doesn't care where it gets the electricity it sells to customers.

If the plants were closed, they would be decommissioned, an expensive process that electricity rate payers have also kicked into our electric bills. FirstEnergy Corp would be eligible to extract administrative fees from these decommissioning funds. So if the plants operate or if they don't, it will not hurt the corporation's profitability. Plant closure, post decommissioning, would hurt both county and the state and regional economies. This scenario has played out multiple times as first generation nuclear power plants have been closed around the country.

When one looks at Ohio Public Utility Commission data, the big picture of renewable electricity generation becomes evident. After years of mandates and tax credits and the relaxation of migratory bird and endangered species regulations, wind, solar, hydro, and biofuels only make up three percent of electricity production statewide. Hydro dams make up one percent and are pretty reliable, outside of drought periods. Solar only works when the sun is out and wind energy only works when it's blowing enough to spin turbines. What makes up the nighttime generation and the windless periods? Fossil fuel burning, mostly from rapid-starting, fracked gas burner plants.

Those two nuclear power generators in good working order that have been essentially paid for by citizens' electricity bill past payments. HB 6 keeps them operating. We all benefit from cleaner electricity. The renewable energy mandate should be modified into a clean energy mandate. Maybe the state legislature can take a look at the old Zero Emission Credit proposal.

Mark Twain once said, "It ain't what you don't know that get you into trouble, it's what you know for certain that just ain't so that does".

Many good hearted environmentalists think they understand energy and electricity production. I encourage folks to really study the issue. A good starting point is this website:

www.ElectricityMap.org. Another good website is: www.GridWatch.ca. It goes into detail on the Ontario Canada grid -

often the most carbon-reduced electricity grid on the planet. If you commit to looking at these sites, you'll know more about real world electricity generation than 98 percent of the people on the planet.

22. Breeder reactors can provide much safer nuclear energy: Providence Journal 13 Dec 2019, William F. Barry In response to E. Pierre Morenon's Dec. 8 letter ("Problem with disposing waste makes nuclear a poor choice"): There has been a technology around for five decades that obviates the need to dispose of spent fuel rods at fission plants. It is called a "breeder reactor" and it can generate more fissile material than it uses.

By economically consuming neutrons, it efficiently and more completely uses fuel than the prominent "light water reactors." It can regenerate used nuclear fuel. When nuclear power fell out of favor years ago the technology became dormant. But the way it works is preferable to wind/solar, which is still waiting for a technological breakthrough some seven to eight decades away.

23. Readers Write: Green energy. budget surplus. population trends: Minneapolis Star Tribune 13 Dec 2019, Stephen Grittman A recent commentary from state Rep. Jeremy Munson induced several letter writers to object to his claim that green energy has unaccounted-for environmental costs, including the need for mining 26 https://nrc.barbaricumanalytics.com/Home/Daily

('"Green' energy relies on copper-nickel mining," Opinion Exchange, Dec. 12). The objecting letters included the idea that need promotes new technology and that we must accept "sacrifice" to avoid environmental degradation.

To these I say "hogwash." I know little about Rep. Munson's claims. But if technological innovation is spurred by need -

with which I agree -

then I wonder about the lack of a cry for carbon capture or a unified call for the recycling of spent nuclear fuel. These technologies exist today. But for various reasons, they are shunned by environmentalists.

Nuclear is the most powerful, efficient, cleanest form of energy generation. By far. For fear-mongering reasons, we don't build new plants or recycle the spent fuel, and we look to shutter the generation we have. This is based on a 1977 ban, but there have been zero incidents related to fuel-recycling anywhere -

most notably in France and Japan.

Carbon capture is simple technology, although currently expensive. But with attention and research, it should be used alongside the most reliable, abundant form of energy production -

especially given our vast carbon-based resources and existing generation and distribution infrastructure. Unfortunately the activist left is not interested -

they seek destruction of the carbon-based fuel industry, more than they want clean, affordable energy.

History is not a story of increasing sacrifice. It is one of increasing advancement. We should put our resources where they lead to progress, not regress.

24. Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act hurts Utah: The Independent (UT) 15 Dec 2019, Steve Erickson On Dec. 11, organizations announced their opposition to House Resolution 2699, the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2019, and urged the Utah's federal delegation to vote against this bill.

These organizations include the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah, Citizens Education Project, Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment, Uranium Watch, the Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force, and the Utah Sierra Club.

HR 2699 aims to open consolidated interim storage facilities for high-level radioactive waste throughout the southwest. This bill is focused primarily on opening these facilities in New Mexico and Texas as well as completing a permanent waste storage location at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. HR 2699 passed out of the United States House Energy and Commerce Committee in November by voice vote.

"Congress should be pursuing hardened on-site storage for this waste at or near its current location. This is the solution that can most safely contain it and not put others at-risk," said Dr. Scott Williams, executive director of HEAL Utah.

"They want to complete the deep underground storage facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada which has widely considered to be geologically unsuitable," said Steve Erickson of Citizens Education Project, "and then truck the waste cross-country once more."

"Washington is bowing to the political clout of industry while placing unnecessary and potentially costly risks on public health, showing deference to polluters yet again," said Carly Ferro, interim director of the Utah Sierra Club. "Additionally, the transport of nuclear waste is dangerous to citizens. The nuclear industry not only wants to truck it from all over the country to the border between Texas and New Mexico but wants federal money to fund its actions."

The only representative from New Mexico on the committee, Representative Ben Ray Lujan, said that he was "deeply concerned that this bill makes it more likely that a future interim storage site -

potentially one in New Mexico -

becomes a permanent home for nuclear waste."

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While HR 2699 doesn't propose any waste facilities in Utah, the organizations are concerned about the transportation implications that the state would incur. Transporting high-level radioactive waste away from the facility where it was created inherently puts innocent citizens at risk should an accident occur.

"In order for the nation's high-level radioactive waste to be stored at the proposed facilities, it needs to get there first, and 80 percent of it could come through Utah," Williams explained. "This means that we could see as many as 10,000 shipments of the world's most hazardous material moving through communities up and down 1-15, leaving Utahns to simply hope that no accident occurs while it's in transit."

The House committee also proposed an amendment that was approved for a grant to fund the study of radiation exposure impacts, something that Utah is painfully familiar with in the state's history of cancer among downwinders and uranium miners.

The organizations urge decisionmakers to oppose HR 2699 and instead consider the permanent hardened on-site storage option which would be safer and more just and not require any transportation of the waste.

25. Opinion: Germany's climate policy doesn't suit the EU: Deutsche Welle 13 Dec 2019, Christoph Hasselbach How can you obtain a unanimous decision from which one country is excepted? But this is exactly what the European Council has done. All 27 heads of state and government, including Poland (the British prime minister, Boris Johnson, was understandably absent), have agreed that the EU should be climate neutral by the year 2050. However, Poland has been granted a concession -

it can take a bit longer to get there. How long has not been stipulated.

Ursula von der Leyen's contortion allows her to save face, but only with the greatest of difficulty.

The new president of the Commission was keen to demonstrate at the start of her term in office what the EU, and she herself, are capable of. Shortly before the EU summit, parallel to the World Climate Conference in Madrid, she announced the great aim of "European climate neutrality in just 30 years." She even went so far as to compare it to the first moon landing -

as if climate neutrality were an event that could be pinned to a specific date!

Hypocritical pretense of unanimity In doing so, she put pressure EU governments to fall into line. If just one country had refused to go along with the resolution, the European Council would have stabbed von der Leyen in the back. The EU as a whole would have looked utterly ridiculous. Hence this hypocritical pretense of unanimity.

However, in order to achieve it, concessions had to be made. Poland will not only essentially be able to decide for itself when to decommission its many coal-fired power stations -

it currently derives almost 80 percent of its electricity from coal! The Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland also managed to ensure that nuclear power was specifically mentioned in the closing statement as an energy source en route to climate neutrality.

French President Emmanuel Macron, supposedly Germany's closest ally, is of course also behind this. As is well known, France generates the majority of its electricity in CO2-emission-free nuclear power plants; it's planning to build several new nuclear reactors, and sees absolutely no reason why that should not be acknowledged as a contribution to climate protection.

Memories of Merkel's refugee policy Germany, on the other hand, is phasing out both coal-fired power generation and nuclear power over a relatively short period of time. No other European country is taking this route, and it looks as if it's going to stay that way.

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This summit has shown how little the German model is regarded as a desirable example. Worse still: Although Ursula von der Leyen is responsible for the whole of the EU, many eastern Europeans still see her as the German who's now trying, in the EU's name, to impose a German agenda in climate policy, too.

And that's gone wrong before. German Chancellor Angela Merkel tried to get her position on refugee issues accepted as the policy of the EU as a whole -

and failed. Germany now needs to acknowledge that other countries also have views on climate policy that differ from its own.

26. Is 80 years just a number? Maybe for America's aging nuclear plants: Axios 16 Dec 2019, Amy Harder The presidential campaign trail isn't the only place where 80 years old is becoming more common.

Operators of up to 20% of America's nuclear reactors are seeking federal approval to run reactors for an unprecedented 80 years. The trend helps combat climate change -

but it's also raising serious safety concerns.

Earlier this month, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, an independent federal body, approved the first application seeking such an extension.

The agency renewed the operating licenses of two reactors near Miami from 60 years to 80.

Because this was done more than a decade before existing licenses expire, the reactors will now run until a few years after 2050.

Where it stands: America has just under 100 reactors at roughly 60 power plants, which provide the country with nearly 20% of its electricity-but more than half of the carbon-free kind.

The average age of those reactors is about 40 years old, but up to one-third could be taken offline in the next few years before their licenses expire due to economic stress.

Because of those struggles and because no companies are building new large-scale nuclear plants, these 80-year extensions are critical to the industry's survival in the coming decades.

These approvals would make these reactors just a couple of years older than the three top Democratic presidential candidates.

The backstory: Duke Energy, one of the U.S.'s largest utilities, announced in September that it will seek to renew operating licenses for all 11 reactors at its six nuclear plants out to 80 years.

A key factor in its decision was the utility's ambitious climate-change goals: cut emissions by at least half in the next 10 years and then reach zero by 2050.

Nuclear power makes up a third of Duke's generation output, but nearly all of its carbon-free kind.

The big picture: Duke is just one of numerous entities -

including states, governments and other companies -

making ambitious climate goals going out to 2050 without concrete roadmaps. 2050 is a common benchmark used to judge progress on climate change, but it seems far off when most decisions are made on far smaller time horizons.

One thing is certain: the more nuclear power plants shut down between now and then, the harder it will be to achieve the already herculean task of cutting carbon emissions over the next 30 years.

That's the main reason why Armond Cohen, executive director of the Clean Air Task Force, one of the few environmental groups backing nuclear power, is supporting 80-year-old reactors.

"The issue here is not whether you think nuclear power is likely to be a big player in the second half of the century for a zero-carbon energy system. If we have better technologies for the second half, that's great. But keeping emissions as low as possible during the transition is going to be brutal."

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But, but, but: Other environmental groups advocating for aggressive action on climate change are nonetheless concerned about -

and sometimes outright opposing -

reactors operating 80 years.

The Natural Resources Defense Council and Friends of the Earth are appealing the NRC's recent approval, citing what they're saying is a rushed review process and the risk that rising sea levels could pose to the coastal reactors in Florida.

Given that the country remains divided over whether -

and where -

to create a long-term repository for nuclear's radioactive waste, this extension and others will also add to the waste stored on site. (NRC says it's safe.)

NRDC isn't officially opposing other reactors seeking extensions (yet), though Geoffrey Fettus, a senior lawyer with the group's nuclear program, has broad concerns.

"You're looking at 40- and 60-year-old technology that needs to operate safely and if it doesn't operate safely everyone has a bad day. We think if there is a consideration of extending the lives of these reactors to 80 years it needs to receive hyper scrutiny."

The other side: Maria Korsnick, president and CEO of the Nuclear Energy Institute, says reactors were initially licensed to 40 years because of economic -

not technical -

reasons, so there's nothing technically stopping these plants from continuing to operate.

She said an appropriate comparison for a reactor is how people decide to renovate their homes versus buying a new one. Many parts of a home can be renovated to keep 80- or even 100-year-old houses functioning well.

As for the Florida approval, Korsnick said those reactors are designed to withstand storm surges of multiple feet, so gradual sea level rise measured in inches isn't a problem.

What I'm watching: I started off by saying 20% of America's reactors are seeking a new lease on life out to 80 years, but Korsnick says there's likely more to come, so that percentage could grow substantially.

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